What did you 3D print today?

Hopefully I works well. I have mine in the basement so it's always cool down there and don't need to worry about heating the space up

 

Well, it's been a learning experience. I changed up a few things in the slicer. So far, so ok. There are still a few major mistakes spotted so far (with three hours remaining out of a 12 hour print), but the majority of the structure is .... better.

I figured out the clogging issue and how it cascaded to positioning errors. But the Z offset is still a complete mystery. It was a problem all day yesterday. Today, its acting like the Z offset problem never existed.


Technology is grand.

 

Looks pretty good. Yeah technology is the best

 

Well they're far from pretty, but I feel vindicated.

Ok, NOW I'm ready to start a weekend of printing things.

 

Does anyone have a history with the Dino Clip?

I think I've printed 20 of these things all under different settings and materials, and only one survived with hinges intact.

If love to figure out how to get one consistent.

 

Nope no experience. Never tried a moving part like that. I'd like to try one day

 

I love the one I have. I just want more.

 

You either need to increase the tolerance or you need to just use more force. It's hard to tell since I'm not familiar with your partner. Usually moving parts printed as one piece will be stuck together until you break the bonds. The places where the part moves should be weaker since the layers were never intended to join together in the first place.

 

So what do you mean by increasing tolerance? They are breaking at points where they should be the strongest, which tells me it's either a slicing, printer or model error. I'm following the recommended settings of 0.2mm layers, 5 layer walls. I suspect that I'm printing too hot. I was going to download a file from a different source and run at minimum temperatures to see if that works.

 

When it breaks is it snapping along layer lines or across them?

My thoughts would go to printing too hot, weird cooling, or under-extrusion.

 

Across when I attempted with PETG. The latest attempt with PLA, it broke parallel to layers.

 

PETG is stronger but also more brittle, so that doesn't surprise me. How hot are you running your PLA? Cooling fan on full? Layer adhesion in PLA can be too low of a temp or too much cooling. If it were me I'd try bumping the heat up 5 or 10degrees, and if you want to get cheeky and change multiple variables at once drop the cooling fan by 25% or so. Hotter temps + more time being hot = more melty together. I'd also squint in and really look at your layers and see if you aren't under extruding. I run my prints at like 102% usually (because I'm too lazy to recalibrate my steppers) and I'd get a tiny amount of under extrusion.

 

I'll look into those tips. I typically run at 110% infill, but I dialed it back to 100% default for this print. Also, this spool of dual color has been highly inconsistent. I wonder if that's throwing me.

 

Very well could be. Every once in a while I just get a spool that doesn't want to cooperate no matter what I do.

 

0.2mm is probably good. Reading through the other posts, you mentioned 110% infill. Did you mean flow rate? I know you can exceed 100% for infill but I haven't found a need to.

The only file I found was one with larger tolerances (0.4mm) compared to the original (which I cannot find but is apparently 0.2mm). They are .stl files so you should be able to edit if need be.

 

Not fancy, but fun.

 

FWIW, anything over about 95% infill actually lowers print strength, anything over about 50% has very minimal effects on overall strength as well. More walls and tight overlap on the walls helps. So does increased temp, you won't really damage the plastic itself and increasing temp improves bonding, to a point.

CNCKitchen on Youtube has a ton of great videos on print strength with different materials and settings.

For strength, different materials, and even different colors of the same material from the same brand, can vary wildly.

I didn't see what printer, is it an Ender 3 variant? Enclosures are recommended for all printing, its just that some materials allow you to get away without one. For the "easy" materials it is still recommended as it lowers the power demands of the printer and can help reduce internal stress, and it still does make bed adhesion easier. I'm printing ABS right now without a full enclosure but I wouldn't recommend that.
If you want to make an enclosure look up the Ikea LACK end table designs. I would also recommend hitting up Lowe's or Home Depot for "scrap" plexiglass for the sides as they sell chipped or scratched pieces for cheap.

Edit: ...I should read back a page or two before commenting....

 

for an etsy customer..

 

I used up the 50g white sampler that came with the printer by trying my hand at the VW pen holder.

First, achievements unlocked - on the fly filament change to stretch what little white I had, and also I just discovered support blockers.



Second, that green/blue spool continues to be a problem child, it's streaky as fucking hell. But dang if it doesn't catch the light in a spectacular way.


New desk toy for work acquired... Just in time for the weekend.