First print

Hi,

I have produced my first print (the obligatory Android) and it looks quite good.

There does appear to be an artifact between the left antenna and the head though. Are there methods to deal with such things - other than taking a knife to it?

The bed levelling, Z Home and Extruder steps per mm were quite challenging but I think the result is quite pleasing for a first try.

Image is

Regards,
Neil Darlow

If the artefacts are on the first layer I would guess it is a bit too high or the glass was not clean. What does the back look like?

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Hi,

Yes it appears to be a first layer problem. In fact, one of the arms does not have a channel between itself and the body.

How mich of an increase to Z_HOME_POS are we talking of here? Something like 0.05mm or more/less?

I hope the glass is clean, I wiped it with a lint-free cloth and Isopropyl Alcohol.



Regards,
Neil Darlow

You need to measure the thickness of the skirt and adjust Z so it is exactly 0.3mm thick.

I have had problems with Isopropyl alcohol. I found it leaves a white residue that reduces adhesion. I am not sure if is an impurity in the alcohol or whether it dissolved something out of the cloth I was using. I use meths or acetone. Other people recommend vinegar and various glass cleaning products but I haven't tried those myself.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

I made no assumptions and cleaned the glass with wam water and good old Fairy Liquid then dried with lint-free wipes. It now looks really clean.

I also re-did the Z calibration from scratch which appeared to be exactly 1mm out (M114 showed 6.90mm for a 7.90mm object). Doing the maths seemed to indicate that changing the default Z_HOME_POS from 203.0 to 203.8 was required but by repeated visual inspection and home/G1Z7.9 operations I ended up with a value of 204.175 to give what is now a much better result.

The only artifact I now have is a tiny departure point where the extruder finished. The entry point to the surrounding skirt also meant that there is a fine filament running under the Android's left arm but I think that will come away once the print is off the bed.

Anyway, thanks to your hints, I have now a much better result in my second print.

Regards,
Neil Darlow

I have the ipa from Rapid that comes in the same bottles as the acetone and it worked fine BUT I noticed certain paper towels I was using to apply it were leaving faint white marks. Oddly it was the plain white stuff that did this - the patterned Bounty (Plenty?) stuff didn't leave marks.

In any case, I have switched to acetone...

I wonder if the paper towels contained Fullers Earth (often used to whiten the wood pulp). That might explain the white residue coming from paper products. Not sure about the same for cloth ones though...