Sunday 12 June 2016

Purple printing process promises perfect pieces

Got the new thermistor from e3d faster than expected, so I had some time to put it in this weekend. Putting in the thermistors was a bit fiddly as the covering was fraying, hopefully using the crimps will help:



Other than that, putting it back together was easy enough.

At 220C, 50mm/s, extruded 44 mm out of 50. There was a faint sweet smell, so this is hot enough to melt the PLA properly. At 75mm/s, the same. At 210C 100mm/s, it extruded somewhat less. 100mm/s at 230 extruded 42 mm, but with 75mm/s 44mm. Doesn't look like I can get more than 45 mm out of this, so I'll adjust the firmware accordingly.

After adjusting, it gave 47mm. Odd. Resetting the multiplier and trying again, getting 34mm, 33mm, 34mm. Adjusting for that give about 48mm at 50mm/s, but once I went to 75mm/s, only 46mm. That's exactly the same weirdness I saw before switching.

The brand new nozzle and brand new Innofill filament curled up at the nozzle at once, but after a bit more extrusion it got better, nice and smooth.

First test box got overextruded because Slic3r again didn't pick up the right settings. I've reverted to not specifying a settings file.


On the next print, it picked up the change in layer height (2mm -> 2.5mm) but not the change in temperature. Huh. The cube came out nicer, but still with upturned corners and splits in the top layer. Since my bed stickiness is good, the corners hint at too high a print temperature, or lack of fan.



Added the slanted fan mount and got a decidedly nicer result. No corner lifting, nicer top cover. A bit of gap in the top, though. Changed the slic3r command to be very specific: /Users/lars/Applications/Slic3r.app/Contents/MacOS/slic3r $s --output $o --load "/Users/lars/Library/Application Support/Slic3r/print/Simple Mode.ini" --load "/Users/lars/Library/Application Support/Slic3r/printer/Simple Mode.ini" --load "/Users/lars/Library/Application Support/Slic3r/filament/Simple Mode.ini". Now it picks up changes from Simple Mode. I have only one skirt, but with this hotend/filament combination, that doesn't matter.



Trying with 0.2 layer height instead of 0.25, plus no bed heat since the previous part was really hard to get off. First layer adhesion was much worse, but it fixed itself. The top is great, 0.2mm is the way to go. It was, however, so hard to get off that I had to use the stovetop scraper and tear the tape.



Just for kicks, made a more complex cube. Also took off the tape to see how well that works, and turned off bed heat. Why test only one thing at a time? :) It did quite well until it got up to the top part, then the cube itself came loose from the glass.



Tried again with hotter plate. Came loose at pretty much the same place and in the same way. Curious.



Tried, as I have seen suggested multiple times, coating the glass with UHU stic, still with 80C bed temperature for the first layer and 60C for the rest. And it worked! This piece is pretty close to perfect! And pretty close to impossible to remove...



That cube is at a 60 degree angle, and the overhang is just fine.

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