1

Hey guys,

I registered my CTC Replicator (Running Makerware Firmware) and began attempts at printing Marvin. Typically most of my prints turn out very well as they are pretty large and basic. However, I am struggling a bit with the marvin keychain. I have run several tests with both ABS & PLA and they all turn out somewhat sloppy. Here’s the settings I’ve tried with brown ABS & PLA, let me know if I’m missing something … I think it may be how fast the print head is and the extruder might be too hot. Any help is appreciated, thanks!

ABS (Brown) 1.75mm

- 215 - 220 Celsius

- .2mm & .3mm

- 2 Shells

- 10% Fill

- Print bed 110 Celsius

- 90 mm/s (when extruding)

- 150 mm/s (when traveling)

PLA 1.75mm

- 195 - 200 Celsius

- .1mm & .2mm

- 2 Shells

- 10% Fill

- Print bed (Heat OFF)

- 90 mm/s (extruding)

- 150 mm/s (traveling)

Marvin_1_0.jpg
Marvin_1_0.jpg3264×2448 2.3 MB

.

6 Likes
2

Hi,

the speed for printing is ridicolously fast. Each layer should have some seconds (usually 10 or more) to cool down before the next one is printed above it. Also those blobs at sharp corners are caused by the speed. I have used 20mm/s printspeed and 50mm/s travelspeed.

Furthermore you should try to lower the layerheight 0,1mm or less is appropriate for such a small print.

Slightly more infill will most likely make the very top of Marvins head smoother.

I use Simplify3d so i am not quite sure about the settings that you can change. However try to select concentric solid layers and lower the speed even more for the hook, also you should enable cooling and (if possible) increase it for the eye part aswell as for the hook.

I hope this helps, let me know what you changed and what your results are.

-Marius

2 Likes
3

Those aren’t terrible prints, looks like the loop hole had the worst trouble. I’d try slowing down the extruding speed a bit and see if your results improve. Your settings seem pretty bang on. Of course, each machine is uniquely calibrated so it’s hard to say exactly what is causing the issue, but slowing down a bit should help clean up the prints.

1 Like
4

ABS:

  • 110C Build plate
  • 230-235C Extruder
  • 50-100% Infill
  • No Raft
  • Blue Painters Tape
  • Free Spinning Spool
  • Level Build Plate!
  • Enclosure helpful on large prints

PLA:

  • 60C Build Plate
  • 200-205C Extruder
  • Blue Painters Tape
  • No raft
  • Fan on at 5th layer and up
  • Level Build Plate
  • 50-100% Infill

When printing in .05-.10mm resolutions, use a head speed of 50-60mm and a travel speed of 100-120

We use Blue Painters Tape on the build plate. When leveling the plate, you keep a single piece of paper under the nozzle the entire time. It should have SOME resistance. It should not be hard to pull or push the paper through.

Be advised, don’t remove the paper from under the nozzle until the leveling is complete. You wont be able to put the paper back under the nozzle if pulled with the painters tape applied.

-CTC

5

A couple things you can try (note, I print with a Makerfarm Prusa i3v , Slic3r and Pronterface):

1) Keychain loops look like you could use local cooling. I didn’t have a fan set up so I sat there an blew on it for the last bit of printing and it helped immensely (although probably looked ridiculous).

2) You may need a higher temp for such high speeds. I print at 240C-250C and 60mm/s.

Good luck!

1 Like
6

Alright, so I ran it once more at 20mm/s and what a difference that made! I’ve added a couple photos below. I was also wondering if anyone has encountered a difference of composition between filaments, I get mine off ebay and it seems as though some colors are melting a higher and lower temps compared to one another. Is that common? I was melting ABS at 200 C for my darker colors which make sense as they retain heat better, but it almost seems that there might be a poor process of production for some filaments. Thanks for help!

IMG_1395[1].JPG
IMG_1395[1].JPG3264×2448 2.11 MB
IMG_1396[1].JPG
IMG_1396[1].JPG3264×2448 1.97 MB

1 Like
7

I have actually printed a couple fan mounts for local cooling, I was going to ask around but do you have to increase the extruder temp a few degrees to account for the loss of heat due to the local fans? As you stated, it sounds like local cooling is definitely something to invest in.

1 Like
8

Hi,

good to see, that the quality improoved that much. 200°C is way too less for ABS even if you print that slow. I would recommend 230°C.

Also you have some holes in the print, this can be caused by one or both of the following reasons:

1) you print too cold, therefore the printer can not push out as much filament as required and holes appear

2) you have not set your flowrate to fit the printer

to solve the 2nd one you can mark the filament at a specific point, maybe you would like to wrap some tape around it, or make any other clearly visible mark. Now go to your firmware (when controlling the printer via PC) and extrude 10cm of filament, if you have a reference point close to the mark, that you made (for reference point the best would be the “entry” into the hottube or any other part, that is held in place while the printer extrudes.

By measuring the distance between the mark and the reference point before and after extruding 10cm you can see, if the printer really extrudes this much, if not you have to adjust it with the flowrate.

If you can adjust the fan speed for each layer try to set it higher for the layers, that contain the upper part of the helmet (the overlapping part). It seems like more cooling could help making clearer edges.

May i ask what exactly you mean by higher and lower melting temps for other colors? If your color changes depending on print temperature then you got some low quality ABS. The print temperature is allways the same for different colors, it only varies depening on the application and material. I’ve added a list that you could use as rough refernce.

PLA 190-210

ABS 230-250

Nylon 240

Colorfabb XT 240-260

You get less stringy prints when printing colder. When using low temperature the printer has to use much force to push the filament, therefore you should only print slow.

If you want to go fast, then the filament has less time to heat up in the extruder therefore you need a higher temperature so that the filament gets hot enough.

If you need more help please contact me.

-Marius

1 Like
9

Sounds good, and yes I believe I have some low quality ABS as it was melting a pretty low temp versus the other spools I have. I was wondering if there was a way to adjust the filament diameter. For example I could have 1.85mm diameter versus the “1.75mm” is there a way to account for this in the software? I am using Makerware and it only has basic settings, do you know if there’s a way to account for the filament diameter within the software somewhere? I am going to do another set of printer tests perhaps tomorrow, thanks for the help!

1 Like
10

I don’t have experience with the Makerware. First of all check if the holes disappear when you print hotter. If they still exsist or if you see the opposite (blobs on the surface, too much filament that gets extruded), you could modify this in the flowrate (i hope that you can modify this in Makerware.

When you use some maths you can calculate the volume of 10cm with 1,75mm thick filament aswell as 10cm with 1,85mm.

Circle area : A = r*r*Pi

Volume : V = A*100mm

Factor : f = Vactual / Vperfect

Divide the volume of your actual filament through the volume, that perfect filament would have (1,75) and you got the factor that you have to apply to the flowrate.

You do this by taking the current Flowrate (i call it Fc) divided by the factor ( f ) and you get the new Flowrate:

Fnew = Fc / f

Hope this helps

-Marius

1 Like