First CRASH

Tonight my printer crashed.

I'm not even sure how it happened.  I've been printing lots of stuff and decided to set a big one before bed.  I got up to the sound of my build plate crashing on the ground!

When I got there i saw this:

As you can see the extruder burned through the tape and melted the actual plastic on the top layer of the build plate.  From my guess, the extruder crashed into the build plate early, but kept on going through it's pattern, slowly pushing the plate off until it fell out completely.

The damage on the actual plate is quite bad:

The build lines are burned into the plate.  This is going to make for tough leveling of the first layer going forward.

I recalibrated the bed level and two of my screws were off by about a quarter turn!

Looking back at my log, I think I haven't calibrated this for about 25 prints.

So the lesson learned here is:

1.  Wait for your first layer to be put down before leaving it
2.  Recalibrate your build plate every 5-10 prints!

I've asked my supplier to order up new plates and a new plastic covering. I'm not even sure how to fix this, but I'm going to print the thing that made it screwed up and we'll see how accurate it is.

Bear Warrior - 28mm - Custom Supports

Bear Warrior of the Ironwood - scaled to 166.66% (28mm)
161min/10.44m/$0.79
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1077487

I realized I printed the last Bear Warrior too small for D&D.  I needed to scale it 166.66% for it to be 28mm.  Dutchmogul actually mentions this on a couple of his files.

So I scaled it up using FlashPrint's scale function and when I printed it, halfway through I got this mess below.

The support for the arm didn't hold.  It actually fell over.  I felt his could have been several things, but since my 18mm one didn't do this, I thought I'd try it again.

Looking at the mess, it's clear that when scaled up the support isn't holding from the weight.  It's ok at 18mm but when you get bigger, there's more material to hold and some things don't scale up well.

FlashPrint's support function is pretty good.  You can select two types of supports (but can't mix them).  Treelike will allow you to make angles and branches.  Linear just goes straight up.  I have only done treelike because I felt linear uses too much support material.  You can select either one from Supports Options.

You can start by clicking on the big A for Auto Supports.  Most of the time this works totally fine but since my right arm support wasn't working, I decided to add a bunch.

Here's what the autosupports look like.  You can see the big angle at the left in green that keeps falling off on my model.

 Adding supports is easy. Just click Add and then click the spot on the base you want to start and hold down the mouse button to extend it.  The support will be RED if it is not valid or GREEN if it works.

I went nuts and took no chances.  The last support is red just to show how you can extend it.

 With my new supports in, I now created the g code and the approximate time is 2 hours and 41 minutes which is longer because of the crazy supports I added.  This time to also not take chances, I added a raft.  I rarely add rafts because they sometimes stick too well to the base of things.

Result:  SUCCESS!
The axe hand came out really well and my supports worked great!

Minor Error:  I missed the support at the back of the model.  But despite this the model came out fine.

Everything chipped off fine.  Even the raft came off the base quite easily!

And here's the final process with my two mistakes and the good one!  So far 3D printing has been a very enjoyable learning process, but one where learning from your mistakes is highly rewarded!

Printer Jam and Fix!

So I decided try and change filament today.
I got some of these vacuum bags off of Amazon to make sure I could put my other filament roll in a place where I don't have to worry about moisture.

HUGE ONES that fit all your filament:  Vacuum Bags
Better sized ones (will let you know how well they fit next week):  Vacuum Bags (small x 4)

Haven't tried them yet because I had bigger problems.

The last time I put in filament, when I tried to unload it, it didn't work . My filament was stuck.  So I just cut it and forced it through while pushing new filament through.

This time it didn't work.  I pushed the filament and it just wouldn't go.  After a long time trying, I decided I'd have to open it up.

There is a really good guide on how to do it here:
Remove Flashforge Finder Blockages

Getting the cover off is easy.  Just use the hex wrench provided with the Finder.
The next step is to remove the black bolt on the side of the servo. It is on the left of the silver screw below.  You need a 1.5 hex wrench for this.  I think there's one provided with the Finder but all my tools got mixed up.  Make sure it's a long one!

After opening it up I found the culprit! I pulled it out with plyers and remember to re-level your print bed after you put it all back together!

The job is not so bad once you get it.  I think after doing it once, I can probably do it again in under 10 minutes.