Need for speed

This one is about pure speed. How fast can you print the ubiquitous penny bottle opener?

[www.thingiverse.com]

Rules:
Size = 100 %
Fill = 100 %
Quality = useable. A penny should fit the slot and there should be no skipped steps (ledges in the vertical face)
Time = number of minutes/seconds from first extrude to last for the part only. (excluding bed/hot end warm up, raft, etc.)
Deadline = Sometime before the end of the universe. (or if you survive the big crunch and can still print afterwards go ahead.)

That's right 100% solid part. That way we don't have to worry about layer size or thickness or number of surface layers or anything like that. Just fill that 3D surface full of plastic as fast as you can.

I keep wanting a benchmark for printing speed and haven't found a good one with much data. So here is a contest for the speed freaks out there. Prize is pride of place and a gold star on your forehead. Just post a reply with your fastest time to date and how you did it. (Machine, hot end, plastic, special tricks etc. ) Extra gold star if you link a video. You should probably only compare your times to a machine with the same nozzle size (0.5 mm etc. ) If we get enough data I might do a wiki page on results split out by nozzle size.

The contest goes on forever or until everyone gets bored with the bottle opener and moves on to some other file to test machine speed in a differrent way.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2013 11:35AM by bryanandaimee.

So to get the ball rolling I'll set the bar really low.

Printed on a mostly stock Makerbot Cupcake with the original extruder and hot end (V5 I think). Using the original DC gear motor and everything. ABS plastic. 0.5mm nozzle.

I get 46 minutes 30 seconds.

If you can't beat that you have serious issues.

I'll warm up the Prusa sometime soon and see what I can do on a more capable machine.

Have fun
Bryan

Surly some kind of quality criteria such as "recognisable", "ok" or possibly "functional' quality needs to be set against this. I'm sure I could pump out the required amounts of plastic in a matter of minutes, but it would be a hideous monstrosity that would be barely recognisable as the intended part!

bryanandaimee Wrote:
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> That's right 100% solid part. That way we don't
> have to worry about layer size or thickness or
> number of surface layers or anything like that.
> Just fill that 3D surface full of plastic as fast
> as you can.

Like the challenge, but you need to limit the possible options to really measure speed of print -

Even at 100% infill you still need to have all the same layer height and nozzle size to compare -

With the same settings but a 0.2mm layer and 0.4mm nozzle I get 42mins
Keep identical settings and just change layer to 0.8mm and nozzle to 1.1mm and you can print it in 9mins 29seconds.

And that's all with 4xBrim +Z Layer Lift enabled and good extruder retraction, change or remove any of those settings and things get much faster.

And then Firmware Acceleration settings, many people don't change these, but they have a big impact on print time.


Maybe do a matrix of Nozzle size V layer height and a 50% infill (specify line or Honeycomb etc.) as a starting point?

I'm really tempted to make a 1.1mm nozzle now just to see what a part would look like

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

konwiddak: I agree there should be some sort of quality constraint, perhaps at the very least it should be useable and a penny should fit the slot.

richrap: I like the idea of separating by nozzle size. It could be like weight class for wrestling. As for the rest, I was really wanting more of an unlimited type competition where tips and tricks were shared as to what improves times for printing. At some point I'm hoping that we get to best in class slicer settings and the hardware itself is the limiting factor. At that point hopefully we will get a better idea of what hot ends, extruders, etc. really push the envelope.

For instance I definitely would not want to constrain acceleration settings or split out by acceleration settings. Rather I would like to see how far we can push them. I did add a quality constraint though so if you push it too far and start getting skipped steps you'll have to back off, that should constrain accel settings to useable levels.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2013 11:43AM by bryanandaimee.

I like the idea of ignoring the nozzle and layer height as long as the part looks and functions like it is supposed to then great. Volume is volume and the speed limit these days is volume.

billyzelsnack Wrote:
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> I like the idea of ignoring the nozzle and layer
> height as long as the part looks and functions
> like it is supposed to then great. Volume is
> volume and the speed limit these days is volume.


Well if I can cheat then, it may convince me to try ABS in big layers and an acetone vapour bath

It should be interesting to see what everyone comes up with.

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

Is ths all taken on trust, or at some point will the unbelievably fast be asked to video the results.

richrap : That's the spirit But why a vapor bath? It seems like you wouldn't have any trouble with adhesion.

gazob: We trust everyone Though the phrase "vids or it didn't happen" might find its way onto the list from time to time.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2013 12:12AM by bryanandaimee.

I wonder if it would be possible to build a thin shell of the object and then keep your extruder still and pump it full of plastic. I agree with a "penny fits and functional" is a good criteria

bryanandaimee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> richrap : That's the spirit But why a vapor
> bath? It seems like you wouldn't have any trouble
> with adhesion.
>
The Vapour bath is not for adhesion, it's to melt the outer surface after a print, you can make a 0.3mm printed object look smoother than a 0.1mm object after a vapour bath.

He looks around to try and find a different example... but settles on this rather dodgy one

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

konwiddak: I would think you would get better prints and less chance of burrying your hot end in plastic if you just went for a layer height that was large enough that you no longer had to wait for the mechanics. Then the extruder could still run flat out but you would still have a nice layered part and likely less chance of failed prints. I think the difference between say a .3 or .4 mm layer height and a stationary hot end would be very small.

konwiddak Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I wonder if it would be possible to build a thin
> shell of the object and then keep your extruder
> still and pump it full of plastic.


No...I can't see that as an option with todays printers as the plastic goes hard pretty soon after it leaves the nozzle and you would have nothing more than a big mess, it does not flow like water, but what is there to say you can't make a shell and fill it with "builders insulation foam" (don't know what it is called). It comes in a spray can and is very hard to control as it expands like an airbag but slower.
But not an option for this object as there is no strenght in it.

cheers
Jan

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2013 07:46AM by IceMan.

bryanandaimee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Printed on a mostly stock Makerbot Cupcake with
> the original extruder and hot end (V5 I think).
> Using the original DC gear motor and everything.
> ABS plastic. 0.5mm nozzle.
>
> I get 46 minutes 30 seconds.
>
> If you can't beat that you have serious issues.
>
>
> I'll warm up the Prusa sometime soon and see what
> I can do on a more capable machine.
>
> Have fun
> Bryan

I'm impressed that a Cupcake can do it that fast!

I had a go while testing the new Prusa Nozzle over the weekend - No cheating, and No compromise on quality, I wanted a good print as a reference, turns out it still takes a while even at the following speeds -

MendelMAX printer, with Basically the same Acceleration settings as used on the Ultimaker and with a slightly faster Z axis speed.

100% solid line infill 100% size Bottle opener
0.2mm Layers
0.4mm nozzle
140mm/sec infill speed
120mm/sec perimeter
Using the Prusa Nozzle
Natural PLA 3mm
200 Degrees C
No heated Bed (on Blue Tape)
Fan cooling the print - just a single object printed.
Total print time = 29mins 16 seconds.
Two perimeters.



I can upload a video of the total print if anyone wants to see it, but it's not far off the one I used in this video about the Prusa Nozzle - the only real difference is that I switched off the heated bed and printed the one shown above on a strip of Blue tape - that really helps keep things warp free and cool at these speeds.



If you do one faster than that it's going to need some real speed evidence!

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

Nice. I'm impressed! Over 15 minutes faster with a smaller nozzle. Does the plastic flow scale in proportion to the area of the nozzle exit hole? If so I would guess a 0.5 mm nozzle at similar settings would be around 20 minutes.

Yes, the extruder is actually going quite slowly, it can push much more plastic, but I'm just about at the speed limit of this machine.
I'm getting very little die swell and forces are low with this nozzle, you can push and extrude PLA 3mm filament with just two fingers at 145 degrees C

Repetier Host predicted the print time to be 26mins, and it tends to be accurate for me, so I think my Firmware settings are just slightly slowing this print down, it's possible I could go faster, but I'm not sure how much the MendelMax can handle? It would be faster on a Delta with a bowden setup, I'll try that at some point.

I do also have a 0.6mm Prusa nozzle too so I could test and see what difference that makes, I may need to bump up the layer height a bit.

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

Sounds like you could also get a significant speed up by increasing the layer height for the 0.4 mm nozzle as well if you are limited by the mechanics and not the hot end.

Maybe you could try the wanted section of the forum. This is a printing contest discussion.

So close! But ultimately skipped a step and failed 3/4 of the way. Cura says 16 minutes, but pronterface said 22 to complete (and failed at ~19). I've found pronterface to be more realistic.

[www.youtube.com]

Tweak / tune / try again! This printer is less than 24 hours old, so I'm still toying with it.

JW

That mini Kossel is flying!

I don't stand a chance with my old MG Prusa, but I do have an idea. Since the challenge is for a 100% solid part, wouldn't it be faster to use more shells instead of going through all the direction changes required by infill?