The support problem was solved as cdru suggested but the finish was marred by having a changeable number of shell layers. This was caused by me having a failure-to-think. Any slicer is only concerned by the thickness that it sees in the layer that it is slicing so that the wall thickness for Slic3r is in the XY plane, as shown below on the right, not on the left.by leadinglights - Printing
Hi cdru. I have tried something like that and at least is was printable, but I still get a few problems. The surface quality of something with 0% infill is better than any defined thin shell and the speed is faster. The poorer quality seems to be because there are variable number of shells if it has a defined thickness - I am using 1.2mm with an extrusion width of 0.4mm and get from 3 to 5 shellby leadinglights - Printing
I want to avoid supports because of the material and time. I did try upside down but on the small base and the fairly hot bed the ABS was flexible enough to have the top swinging about. This is a pro bono design for a school and I want to give them the best recommendations for successful printing. I have a number of possible solutions including using PLA, having more shell layers, hotter or coldby leadinglights - Printing
I have been trying to print a bell model and have been coming across some problems with the inside overhang of the top. For conomical use of materials and time, not to mention better finish, I have modeled this as a solid but sliced with no fill, no top or bottom. The angle of overhang on the top is 68 degrees. Although this overhang is severe it is quite printable on the outside of anything. Onby leadinglights - Printing
From my observations, anodized aluminium sheet tends to be flatter than plain aluminium. I think that this is because it is assumed that it will not be bent and has a harder temper. Also, sheets that I have bought are typically A4 size (210 X 297mm) rather than as offcuts from a 2000 X 1000mm sheet stored vertically in a wooden rack. In the 7 or 8 sheets of 2mm and 3mm anodized aluminium that I hby leadinglights - General
As the_digital_dentist points out, another error is in the nozzle height is sag in the guide rails - if you add a 6mm aluminium heat spreader plate which is 0.025mm flatter than a glass plate but its mass causes 0.1mm of extra sag then the improvement has not been worth it. On one of my printers I do not use a heat spreader at all, just a headed bed clamped directly to a glass plate. Although thby leadinglights - General
To go back (almost) to lunarkindom's original question: How much error in flatness/level is tolerable? What is the effect of too much error? My own observation is that a very low error seems to be most important is single part prints covering a large area and printed in ABS. Accurate and consistent control of the first layer seems to be as important as anything else in getting good adhesion andby leadinglights - General
Whether from out of level or lack of flatness is immaterial, keeping the maximum error within tolerable limits is most important. One easily overlooked thing is that these errors can change quite a lot between the hotbed being cold and being hot - and a little more as the heat reaches the attaching points.by leadinglights - General
I believe that there are only some aspects of the future of 3D printing that can be predicted. The era of the home made 3D printer is drawing rapidly to a close. This makes me very sad, but it is so despite my sadness. The concept of making things to an exact requirement is now out in the wild. With the vagaries of human fashions, company policies and just plain luck, any guess is likely to beby leadinglights - General
Mutley3D, Can I ask what the non-substrate surface that you are printing on is? The need to buy something like Wolfbite is less important than the fact that it is made to promote adhesion of ABS prints to glass. The makeshift solutions rely on the manufacturer keeping the same recipe - whether hairspray, Kapton film, glue stick or whatever - there is nothing in the specification about promotingby leadinglights - General
I am pretty certain that Mutley3D is right, it does boil down to molecular structure. I also think that he is wrong about chasing the glass being a waste of time - if the thing that goes wrong with the surface molecular structure can be defeated then glass is pretty much as good as it gets. Having said that, I am presently experimenting with Wolfbite and my experience is that it behave exactlyby leadinglights - General
The following works well for me. Select a piece of drill steel or silver steel or a long shanked drill bit of a known diameter - about 2mm is good Get the bed and hotend up to temperature and allow about 10 minutes to stabilize. Home the Z axis and lift to the diameter of the previously selected steel rod minus about 0.05mm Move the hotend directly over (or as close to directly over as you can gby leadinglights - General
The problem is not what works, but what stops it working for everybody. I have discovered one bad thing - using extra strong kitchen tissues such as these with Acetone will leave a very anti-stick layer. Even Wolfbite won't wet the glass. Mikeby leadinglights - General
Quotelunarkingdom ..... Why do anything other than what works when you have been given a recipe for success? There could be many reasons. The particular brand of hairspray that you recommend may not be available in other parts of the world. There may be some other reason why adhesion is below par. e.g., skynetprinter mentioned that ABS slurry worked much better on his found tinted glass than onby leadinglights - General
@lunarkingdom You are printing on " 3 light layers of aqua net hair spray", not on glass. My only attempt with hairspray (Boots extra hold) was a failure - it might as well have been oil that I was printing on. When it works, printing directly on glass is very good indeed. Hot adhesion is excellent and the print pops off when cold. the problem is that the printing seems to poison the glass and laby leadinglights - General
I do know that old greenhouse glass (3mm) worked splendidly for a while without even ABS juice but got poorer and poorer adhesion no matter how it was cleaned until it had been left on a shed roof for most of the summer. After long exposure to the sun (UV??) and rain it was good again. Things which had failed to clean and re-establish adhesion included acetone, Fairy washing up liquid, very fineby leadinglights - General
Most ink jet printers, even the $100 ones, go through a lot of self calibrating before they start a print. Many 3D printers already do the bed leveling and it wouldn't be a huge task to add things like sensors to check that filament is being taken at the requested rate. Heated beds and hot ends could be checked by smart software (does it heat up from cold in a predicted time) and many other tweakby leadinglights - General
Going back to the original question Quote I was just wondering if it's possible or even worth it to make a heat bed with dual circuits. and doing a lot of sucking numbers out of the end of my thumb. My 200mm X 200mm bed takes say 100W for a temperature of 110 degrees C. For your 300mm X 300mm bed this would be about 225W with the 150mm X 150mm bed taking about 68W, saving 157W. If i take a wildby leadinglights - General
I make my own heated bed PCBs with dual circuits although this is so that they can be wired in parallel for 12V or series for 24V - both configurations giving the same power. It was pointed out to me by somebody at the TCT show last year that the same PCB layout that I use could be reconfigured to have different areas on or off. In this video of putting resist for etching a PCB onto copper-cladby leadinglights - General
A long slow exposure to acetone fumes at a low temperature (there has been a lot of low temperatures lately) seems to give added strength throughout the object with just a slight polish. If this is followed by a hotter exposure the surface finish can be very smooth. I think that acetone may weaken some types of ABS that have a large percentage of non acetone soluble plastics and or dyes. I thinkby leadinglights - General
Replying to rmlrn, But only if the design is licensed under the GPL and not simply as "Open Source" As far as providing the files the creator used, does that include all data sheets, working calculations etc.?by leadinglights - General
QuoteOhmarinus ... Fun to think about, but it's very hard to achieve metal printing with good materials if you're a DIY'er Ah! but 3D printing itself was just fun to think about until people started realizing that the expensive parts of 3D printers could be simplified to the point that plywood and glue could be used to make a 3D printer - which would then make somewhat better parts for the nextby leadinglights - General
I like the definition that Traumflug gave, "Sources sufficient to make a copy." as I believe that a reasonably intelligent person would have understood by the phrase "Open Source" in hardware - the understanding of a person skilled in the arts of electronic design would also be about the same. Where it may get a bit murky is that "Sources sufficient..." for a person skilled in the arts dependsby leadinglights - General
The word OPEN SOFTWARE has meant many things, one of the earliest - and furthest from Open Source as we would understand it , was that the specification of the API would be SOLD to anybody who PAID - even direct competitors.by leadinglights - General
Make your own by the etching from FR4 copper clad glass fiber board. If the pattern is accurately scaled the resistance should remain the same - you will however have to do some checking on the true thickness of the copper on the FR4 that you get as this seems to be a bit variable. I have two variations on the design I use on Thingiverse at andby leadinglights - General
There is yet another 3D printer partwork available:- |utmccn=%28organic%29|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=%28not%20provided%29&__utmv=-&__utmk=22081725 I think that there is a third one but I can't find where I came across itby leadinglights - General
Try pouring some of your acetone from the container onto a very clean sheet of glass. If there is any residue after it dries off then it could be that the problem is your acetone. If not, it seems likely that the dye is more soluble in the acetone than ABS is - the white cast is the plastic (or one component of the plastic) minus the dye.by leadinglights - General
A 0.9o stepper should be better than a 1.8o stepper, but that doesn't mean that it will be. For example, if the rotor concentricity to the shaft is not as good in the 0.9o as in the 1.8o then it may not be as accurate. Having said that, I have only had one stepper motor that was not accurate and linear. For my next 3D printer I will try out 0.9o steppers.by leadinglights - General
There looks to be a total of 60 issues (or thereabouts), first one at £1.99, two issues with electronics at £14.99 and the others at £6.99. I am not sure what they do about other pricy items like the stepper motors. Total based on the published info would be £430.40. I bought a copy of the first installment and the plastic parts look O.K. The magazine was also not too bad although one of the papby leadinglights - General
My first though was that pushing a molten metal through a liquid (water, oil etc.) had too many problems, but I wonder if the Leidenfrost Effect - which puts a layer of boiling liquid between a hot object and a liquid - may make it a practical proposition. My guess is that you would have to have a very well insulated hot end and extruded metal well above its melting point.by leadinglights - General