Builders/Metalab
Contents
Blog
Things that turned out to work
PEEK instead of PTFE for the thermal insualtor
PTFE is just too soft. PEEK has two disadvantages: it has more friction so its harder to unscrew the M6 winding which was once a problem because the heating barrel broke when our head crashed into the base. Because we could not get a grip on the broken part we could not unscrew it. However a PTFE part would have bent and would also be destroyed. Next thing I want to try out is a PEEK PTFE mix so it should have better friction characteristics. The other problem is cost. It costs about EUR200 per kg we purchased a 20mm x 300mm cylinder for EUR60. We have only lost one PEEK part so far. We destroyed about 8 PTFE parts in accidents before. More info on our blog: http://reprap.soup.io/?search=peek
Acrylic base plate
A milled acrylic base plate provides good adhesion for ABS. http://reprap.soup.io/post/6602231/Current-Extruder-Setup
Heated base plate
If you can heat the object, the internal stresses that normally build up while each layer cools off seperatly are reduced allowing you to make relly flat objects. We have not tried out Adrians fan solution but that might be an even simpler solution. That would also be easier to use with the acrylic base plate that provides better sticking than the heated copper plate. http://reprap.soup.io/?search=heated+base
CSG Evaluator - A useful plugin for AoI for doing multiple boolean operations
documentation and tutorial can be found here: Builders/Metalab/AoI CSG Evaluator
