Dano
1
Continuing on my quest, I decided to attempt a more difficult large-scale print. This is a model @Ekrem_Ipek sent me a few months ago that I’ve been obsessed with getting right ever since:
This was printed with carbon fiber PLA from proto-pasta. The surface roughness isn’t ideal, but could probably be improved by adjusting the settings.
Because of the brittleness of carbon fiber, one of the inner limbs cracked when I was snapping the spheres together. The first photo shows the lengths I went to in repairing the broken inner sphere (with enough super glue anything is possible).
The second photo shows the finished product.
Any ideas on how to improve settings for large carbon fiber prints? Comments and advice welcome.
3 Likes
Try lowering your temperature by 10 degrees, or using a layer fan. It’s all looking a bit hot to me.
Look at the bottom layers on each print, they are working well, I’d assume because you have to print all the way around the circle. But as soon as the circle becomes broken, the plastic seems to be a bit too hot, probably because the last layer doesn’t have enough time to cool before the next layer is deposited.
top layers and bottom layers where you are printing constantly look great. I think the interpretation of too much heat looks like too much material to me. I would double check that your extruder is calibrated correctly and that your retracts are working with this material. It looks blobby to me, that is what I’m basing my analysis on.
Good luck and let us know!
Nikki
4
Looking good @Dano! @ChrisCho so you have some tips for printing with the Carbon Fiber?
Dano
5
@Nebbian, thank you for your advice. I was wondering why it started out looking so good at the base and then began degrading in quality and I think your diagnosis makes sense. I’d used the same settings for other carbon fiber prints but they were all solid objects. Clearly the type of object being printed can make a big difference on what settings should be used!
