Speed Experiments

So it's time for me mess with some of the speed settings to see what they'll actually do.

I've been having some trouble with bed adhesion and I was hoping changing the speed would affect it, but also looking at how the quality would change.

Here's a comparison of time with Peridot at 80mm/s (default) and 40mm/s on "Higher" resolution.

You'll note a few things:

• 67 minutes vs 128 minutes
• 2.80m vs 3.20m
• 474 layers vs 609 layers

Comparing the two prints they look the same from a distance but there you could figure out which one was done with the higher detail by taking a closer look at the layering and edges.  Either way, the normal speed one does fine for what we wanted.

So the effect is noticeable but the questions is: is it really worth the time?

Oddish Planter

Oddish Planter

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:738011

265min/16.31m/$1.24

This looked like a fun present for an Anime friend.

It printed out well.  I added supports and there were a lot between the legs, but they all came off really well!  It is a fun design and was easy to print, although it took over 4 hours.

 Lots of supports under neath the Oddish:

 Supports everywhere!

 But they come off easy.

Eclipse Board Game Cube Tray

Eclipse Board Game Cube Tray

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:500632

37min/2.41m/$0.18

I thought I'd save a bunch of time and print a set of Blue Lantern rings AND 2 Eclipse game trays.  The rings came out fine but the trays warped because the painter's tape did not stick to the brand new build plate surface (new build plate)!

 So I reprinted just the tray this time and just did it on top of a fresh build plate, no tape, no glue.  It worked great!  No lifting!

Here it is with cubes and on the game board.  Eclipse is an awesome game.  Takes forever to play, but still awesome and I can guarantee I'll probably not even play once this year.

Looking at the fit of the cubes, I measured the holes in the plate and cubes themselves.

Holes = 8.85mm

Cubes = 8.40mm

Very good tolerance and makes for an easy fit for the cubes!

Print Surface Replacement

If you screw up a lot like I do, you're going to need some replacement print surfaces for your build plate. I got these from Digitmakers.ca this week and they will help a lot.

You may recall a few posts ago my extruder crashed into the build plate and started melting it.  So that's what the build plate sheets will be replacing.  At about $8 each, it's a fair deal since normally I wouldn't replace them. I bought 4 because I foresee more screw ups in the future.

To increase my output, I got some spare build plates also.  This will allow me to print some more stuff while I am cleaning and prepping the other build plate.  I have 2 extra or one for each machine.

 This is the build surface I am replacing .  This one got screwed up on Finder #1 when I was trying to make a batch of crates and barrels.  You can see the scars in circles and squares cut into it.

 The replacement build sheet has the 3M sticker backing.  The surface is exactly like the original and has that rough texture that is good for a few prints but not in the long run.

 First I had to remove the sticker off of the old plate.  This was done by prying up a corner and then peeling it off with a lot of force.  That thing is SUPER stuck on there!  There will be glue residue left over that we can remove later.

 Here's the old, wrecked build plate surface.

 And here's the build plate with the glass off.  To get rid of the glue residue on the glass I used this stuff from Home Depot called Goo Gone although I think my bottle looks different: https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.tough-task-remover-spray-gel---12-ounce.1000685344.html

You can remove the glass plate by pushing back on the two tabs at the top of the build plate and popping the glass out.

Yay clean glass and build plate!

And with the new build surface installed.  I couldn't take a pic of me putting it on but basically you want to peel the entire 3M backing off and then lean the sheet from the top of the build plate and late it down as slow as you can while squeezing air out.  It will slap down if you're not careful.  Actually this happened to me and there was a tiny bubble trapped inside that I have to push downward.  It's probably still in there.  You can use something flat and heavy to try and push the bubble to the side or out.

Sometimes a fresh build plate surface works better than glue and blue painter's tape as you will see in a future post!

Modified Dragon Skull

Originally from: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1378132

He has the link to his Tinkercad model which I copied to my own account and modified.

https://www.tinkercad.com/things/g3vCLebCM1f

I removed the spike in the middle of the mouth and then played with scale to make it longer.

224min/10.91m/$0.84

The print came out really well.  I oriented it veritcally so that the raft was on the base and the best details at the front of the dragon were faced up and not needing supports.

With all the supports off, it looks pretty good and will definitely be a centrepiece in my D&D games.

Witcher Medalion

Witcher Medalion
149min/7.3m/$0.55
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:982634

There are a bunch of Witcher medalion models on Thingiverse.  You should pick the one that has the best mounting for you.  There are ones that sit on stands or have loops for chains.  This one has a big loop in the back for a small chain.

It worked out really well, the details were sharp and I printed it with supports that were not too hard to remove.  A great print fresh off Thingiverse.

Flashforge Finder Filament Jam

So my 2nd Flashforge Finder has been mostly problems so far.
There were 2 filament binding jams in the actual filament roll which was a brand new one that didn't come with the printer.
People seems split as to how this is caused. In my opinion it is possible for it to be caused by the user, and the supplier. On the user side, if you unwound a bunch or the spool isn't tight, the filament can slip and bind itself.  So maybe the first one was me when I noticed it got loose.

Now I've been pretty meticulous in tracking my prints.  I record what I printed, how long it took and the converted cost.  So that's why I can say that 67.39m later I got a 2nd jam on the sam spool and it's not my fault because 67.39m is a LONG ways away, like buried deep under lots of tightly wound filament and I seriously doubt unraveling a bit would affect it that far down.

The only solve for this is to cut the filament, untangle it and feed it back in.

It's hard to predict a tangle when it's 67m down into the spool so it looks like if I do a big print, I'll have to rely on luck for a bit unless I get some kind of system where I can redo the winding on spools.

Lifting Issues

I'm printing a box for an Arduino project for some students and I decided this would be a good test.  Since the Finder does not have a heated bed, long flat parts will tend to lift off the bed, curving it and screwing it up.  I've had some success in the past with putting down the blue tape with glue, but there are limitations to it.

About 15 minutes in I could see that it was already lifting off the plate.  So this one's dead.

I figured I didn't put enough glue on.  Ok...lots of glue goes on now.

2nd print try...no luck.  Still lifting.

3rd print try, still lifting.

 This time I let it go all the way just to see what would happen and it turns out I have even bigger problems.  Because this was with the 2nd Finder, I didn't know if this was the printer or the model.

 So I printed it with the 1st Finder and I got pretty much the same thing.  This means the model's supports were screwed up and if I wanted to keep trying this I'd have to manually add supports like I did in a previous post.

Since this project was pretty important I just did it on our big industrial uPrint Plus and it came out fine, but also like 10 times the cost and time!  The Finder can't do everything better than my uPrint Plus but certainly more things are better on the Finder.

Iron Giant Bolt

Iron Giant Bolt

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1569466

3 parts

Top

258min/21.73m/$1.65

Cap

56min/4.18m/$0.32

Screw

386min/21m/$1.59

Batch of remaining parts

~60min/6.27m/$0.47

Total:  760min/53.18m/$4.02

One of my students really wanted this bolt from the movie Iron Giant.

It looked pretty daunting with all those curves and overhangs but I thought it would be a good test for the new printer.

The model comes in 3 pieces.  Make sure you add your rafts and supports for these!

 After about a day of printing, all the parts were done and come out quite nicely!

It is quite a beautiful piece straight out of Thingiverse.  My student wants to paint it but I think it looks good just the way it is!

New Flashforge Finder Setup and CRASH :(

New Flashforge Finder Setup and Crash :(

You may remember my first photo on this blog was of my 2 Flashforge Finders and not just 1.

My goal was always to build a 3D printing hub, so I picked up the 2nd one and didn't open it until I felt I was at a level of expertise to be comfortable working 2 printers really hard for what I do for work.

Keep in mind, I really like the Flashforge Finder and this blog is pretty honest with any kind of issues I ran into.  Just because you don't read about issues with other printers doesn't mean they're not there.  That being said, I am considering buying 2 more Finders for my 3D printing hub.

SetUp:

There are lots of good videos on setting up your new Finder, most of which I watched before buying it.

Galen Law-Kun's is very good and I agree that the end-stop mod is not a bad idea because the default setting of your axis is to crash and stop, not just stop at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTiIdaA9vSM

David Watts also has an excellent one that shows the unboxing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGOHo3KBlKY

And he has a great follow-up:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAmNhrl8TL4

In this article I'm just going to detail what happened to my set up, and all the problems and solutions I had.

So my 2nd printer is the exact same as the first.  In retrospect I should have picked a different color.  They have grey, yellow and 

And here's my regular one:

First Issue - Tube Mod

After pulling out the 3D printer, removing the styrofoam and clipping the tie wraps on the both axis, you should add the tube for the PLA feeder even though it doesn't say you should (they do it in the videos above).  This tube helps guide the filament from the feeder cartridge in the back to the extruder.  

When I tried to push the tube into the cartridge this one didn't fit.  It fit on my first one.  But this was an easy mod.  

 Just take a knife and shave off the end of the tube at an angle so it can fit better.  Don't shave it too much, just make an angle for the tube to fit better.

With the end shaved a bit, you can push it in more easily.

This Finder came with translucent green.  Since I have some already, I opened up some Flashforge translucent blue.  I bought the Flashforge filament specifically to fit it into the filament caddy at the back of the printer.  You do not have to use Flashforge filament.  You can just have a reel on a stand outside of the printer.  But if you want to fit your filament into the caddy you have to use their filament because the spool is smaller.  Because I am moving my printer between 2 locations almost daily, I wanted the spool to be contained so I won't have to load/reload filament every time I move it.

When my first Flashforge filament spools are done, I will probably save them and reload them myself with other filament. (this is tricky, I'd have to do it a certain way to avoid binding/jams).

Your new filament spool will be sealed and the filament end will be tucked into the spool body.  You can clip this bent piece off so that it will feed into the tube and extruder better.

Load the spool so that the free end of the filament is closest to the exit tube in the filament caddy as pictured below:

Now you might have to pull the filament spool out a bit to do this next part.  Manually push the filament through the caddy hole and the tube until you see it come out the other end.  DO NOT just feed it part way and spin the filament spool.  This will cause it to unwind inside your caddy which could cause a jam latter..

And here's what it looks like when it is through the caddy hole.  You'll note that there is a special black block on the pathway to your filament tube.  This contains the electronics for the filament detection feature.

The side of the caddy has these electrical contacts which will activate the filament detection feature.  This is simply a thing that checks to see if filament is present at this point.  If you have the filament detection function on, it will go off when you run out of filament.  This is handy if you're running to the end of a roll.  This detection feature cannot detect how much filament you have left, it only tells you if it runs out at this specific point in the caddy.

When you're inserting the filament into the extruder unit, the instructions at Step 4 stay "4. Press the spring presser, and insert the filament into the filament intake".

The "spring presser" is the level on the left side of the extruder unit labelled below.  That curved groove in the unit is for your thumb to follow it down to the lever.  The "spring presser" is actually a lever that "unpinches" the drive gear that pulls the filament down.  By pressing this, you can open it up to allow the filament to go in.

Sometimes you don't have to.  Sometimes the drive just sucks that filament in, but this will allow you to get the filament in deeper.

Now that the filament is in place, you should calibrate your z-axis/build plate with the built in function that is under Setup.  This is pretty quick and just involves turning the screws underneath your build plate all the way out, and then back in until you hear the high pitched beeping sound.  There are 3 screws and this can be done in under 5 minutes easily.

First Print - CRASH

The first thing I usually print is the 20mm cube that is built into the USB stick that comes with the Finder.

I set it up as normal and then let it print right away.

After a few minutes I heard a clicking sound.  This was the sound of my extruder clicking because the filament wasn't feeding.  I thought that was strange so I stopped the print, went to SetUp and pressed Load to let filament go through.  It went through with any problem.

I cleaned my plate and tried it again.  Clicking sound again.  I just let it go longer and this time on top of clicking there was a grinding sound from my build plate. Looking at the build plate I could see it was actually vibrating!

So I stopped it and this is what I got:

not only is it a really bad print, but after removing the plastic I could see that my brand new print bed is DAMAGED!  The filament head melted and scratch it!  This means that the filament head is too low!  It sucks because my first Finder just ran out of the box but somehow this one shipped with an offset filament head.

A quick email to my vendor and he told me I could calibrate the height of the filament head in Setup.  So I tried the Z calibration function.

Reading online I know that a proper calibration is done on other machines by starting with the extruder head off of the plate by a few milliemtres.  Then you put a piece of paper underneath it and lower the z-axis until it is just slightly pinching the paper when you move it back and forth.  You have to literally keep sliding the paper back and forth until you feel some friction but not to the point where you can't move the paper.

I will see if I can get better pics of this process or even do a video to explain it better.  It is a simple fix that is effective.

NEW RECOMMENDATION:  Before you calibrate your build plate, calibrate your z-axis for your extruder so that you know it won't crash the build plate and melt it!!!

After adjusting the extruder height I printed some 20mm test cubes:

As you can see there's a bit of a lip on the bottom layer suggesting that my z-axis may be a bit too close.  I can fix this by either adjusting my z-axis or printing with a raft in some models.