do you cool or heat a pla print?

Hi folks,
Still learning about pla and its quirks.
A little bit of confusion is occurring. It seems half the material
I'm reading says cool the piece as it is being printed and
the other half says don't.

Any pointers or links to slightly less confusioning pages?

With pla and petg it is recommended to cool the printed parts. You should not do that with abs.
Either way, a heated bed is something seperate and can be used with most materials, though pla does not need it most of the time.
A heated chamber is an advantage for abs and pc, but not for pla.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2016 08:55AM by Srek.

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[www.bonkers.de]
[merlin-hotend.de]
[www.hackerspace-ffm.de]

i use the heated bed to stick the PLA parts in position

Urgh,
I was hoping not to have make a bed cooler. It's getting a bit crowded
under the extruder.

Anyone tried mounting a couple of 90mm fans or so on the frame so they
blow on the bed? I suspect this isn't an ideal solution.

Quote
friarfish
Anyone tried mounting a couple of 90mm fans or so on the frame so they
blow on the bed? I suspect this isn't an ideal solution.

I have seen it done mostly with old Mendel printers. It can work.

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[www.bonkers.de]
[merlin-hotend.de]
[www.hackerspace-ffm.de]

Hi,

This is what I did.
I had to go for this solution because of a problematic part that always started to curl around the nozzle.
Fan : 80mm

Thanks everyone.
I'll have to get around to making that fan mount.

You should not have a problem finding the correct one for your extruder in thingiverse

Same printer, same settings, same PLA : with and without cooling.
Up to you guys to find out which is which...

Chris

sorry but what temperatura and speed work better for PLA, i cant print with a good quality, for this model i use layer h. .3mm, extruder for the first layer at 230 °C an for the rest at 210 °C and the speed for perimeters 40, infill 60, what do you suggest

Well,
in my case I'm using Verbatim PLA with a min temp of 200^. I've settled on 205^c
with a loop/wall speed of 20mm/s and infill of 35mm/s. But the infill is only set to
rectilinear. Honeycomb is brutal.
I could probably just extrude a lot faster but printing would be another matter.

So try setting temp to 5^ above recommended minimun and starting with the above speeds.
First aim at seeing how fast you can print infill reliably before worrying about the loops/shells.

For me PLA is a lot slower then ABS to print

Maybe once I get the bed cooler going, things will go faster

Quote
elkoreas
sorry but what temperatura and speed work better for PLA, i cant print with a good quality, for this model i use layer h. .3mm, extruder for the first layer at 230 °C an for the rest at 210 °C and the speed for perimeters 40, infill 60, what do you suggest

Well, I would aim for quality first, before speeding up things.
Nobody can give you a correct figure on that. Print temperature depends on the filament brand and the setup of your extruder. I always print 195°C. Print temperature depends on the color to, believe it or not. My supplier sent me another PLA batch about a year ago, and I had to raise almost10°C to print with the same quality and strength. You've got to test and find out.
When speeding up printing you have to raise the temperature of the hotend to. Again, you have to find out how much.

Oh and I replaced the 80mm fan with a turbo-fan(http://www.charlies3dt.com/nl/product/blower-fan-50x50x15-mm-12-volt), see what that gives. One thing is for sure it produces LOTS of wind, way more than that regular 80mm fan I first used. And on top it of the turbofan is much smaller.

btw : The PLA I buy, there's marked on the label : 'Printing temperature 185 to 230° C'
I think something similar is marked on all filament.
For objective testing do NOT print a small cube as so many people try to do. Draw or download a somewhat larger part.
Printing small parts myself I always lower printing temperature a bit or combine with other (smaller) parts.