How do you make the M90 printed parts?

Chris,

I want to make another extruder assy. Can you give me a bit of info on how the printed parts in my Mendel90 kit were printed.

Filament type.
Layer height.
Nozzle size.
Slicer used?
Machine used?

I'm asking because I'd like to know if I should expect to achieve the same quality with my standard M90 or whether special techniques would be necessary (heated chamber, smaller nozzle ... ?).

(At the moment, I can do pretty good android men at .4mm PLA or ABS. Printing a larger object or at a smaller layer height generally turns out to be disappointing, with the exception of a thingiverse cookie cutter which in ABS or PLA was sheer perfection but had no overhangs or bridges.)

Thanks for any info.

Some of the information you want is listed on the wiki.
[reprap.org]

richgain

The parts I supply are printed in natural ABS from reprapsource.com.

They are printed on four machines currently: a standard Dibond M90 make from a kit, an acrylic Mendel90, the original MDF sturdy M90, and another much earlier design I never published made from MDF. The two MDF machines are enclosed and run with a chamber temp of 45C.

The acrylic and Dibond machines run with Reprap electronics Marlin and Pronterface. The other two run with my own electronics, firmware and host.

The acrylic Mendel90 has a 0.35mm nozzle and the others have 0.45 nozzles. Most things are printed with 0.4mm layers for speed but some are printed at 0.35mm, 0.3mm and 0.2mm.

The Dibond Mendel90 has PET tape on the bed. The others use glass and ABS juice.

I use SF 50 for the Marlin machines and a very old version of Skeinforge for my own software.

I have printed nearly all the Mendel90 parts successfully on the kit version and it is the fastest and best quality and the most reliable. The only difference from the kit is the nozzle has been reamed to 0.45 and I use the bed fan to cool the parts at the end and don't have the carriage fan fitted.

I have never tried the X motor bracket as I print that in one of the machines with a heated chamber. It may work on PET tape but I suspect it would rip it up pretty quick. I haven't been able to print the Wade's block because SF50 doesn't get the bridge directions right. The old version of SF does but I don't have that set up to produce gcode suitable for Marlin.

I also only print the ribbon clamps with my own software because the support works better. None of the other parts use support.

If you want to print overhangs and bridges with PLA you need to use the fan and I would recommend no higher than 0.25mm layers from a 0.4mm nozzle to get good bridges.

---

[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

@richgain
Thanks for that, I had entirely missed that page.

@nophead
Wow, thanks for such great detail. I've got something to aim at now.
Having just suffered my first "disaster" where the print, still attached to the glass, ended up on the floor, maybe I'll just try and perfect building a small part first and move on to the extruder later.

Actually, I think I shall build something to hold my depth gauge, re-levelling the bed drives me nuts.

Why do you need to level it more than once?

---

[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

> Why do you need to level it more than once?
Because:
A. After the "disaster" the bed was no longer level, and I suspect there will be more disasters and relevellling whilst I experiment.

B. Eventually, I want to use the bed for PCB work with frameworks which will also need levelling.