I’ve just thoroughly read your response and there’s loads of good information in there. I’ll start at a lower temperature,
ill also reduce the bed to 50. And I’m going to change the red tape that came on the bed to the blue water resistant uv resistant tape. (Not 3m). But it’s blue and has the same properties as 3m tape.
I seem to be the only person who had a ctc printer with red tape! Everyone else seems to have blue!
For preparing you bed after the tape you should use a normal gluestick and apply a thin layer to the tape. This will help the adhesion of the PLA to you bed.
Travel speed can be set fairly high (like 100 or so) but the extrusion speed is the one you should keep between 50-70mm/s
Hi Eduardo, I downloaded the software, it seems it is a profile editor. I believe I can use notepad to edit the editing. would simplify 3d automatically be able to print the pilot head? does it know to slow down when it gets to smaller areas?
Hi Adam, thanks for the info, I looked at the Google page and it seems that this mod requires you to solder onto a motherboard. With my limited soldering skills this looks a bit tricky.
Do yo uknow of anywhere I can simply buy the ducts and bits to get extra cooling? Or should I just buy one of these desk fans and point it at the printer?
If you want to use notepad, go ahead, but proftweak is simple and easier to use in my opinion. S3d will not do anything automatically, you still have to tell it to slow down and by how much depending on the time it takes per later, you can customize support for just the hat if you want and you can vary the temperature layer by layer on both the nozzle and the heated bed. It’s not a software that you can just click and go though, I took me some time to understand the parameters and what to change and tune to get great prints.
Got ya, I may hold off on s3d for a bit until Ive got to grips with the printer. and got more cooling. Attempt 8 isnt going that well. It seems the back left hand side (Pilots right shoulder) is the bit that is always failing. so far on both pilots that are printing simultaneously the back left parts of the shoulders have holes in them. I wonder why that is? There is no overhang. The part is symmetrical and the Pilots left shoulder is fine.
You’re pointing a house fan at you printer? I hope the real take away here is that no setting will ever overcome a physical hardware (lack of cooling) condition.
Can I just clarify something with regards to how the printing works…
A layer is created, ideally, should this layer be cooled as much as possible before the next layer is printed on top? If I went and bought 5 desk fans and aimed them all at the printer, would that do anything? what about putting the printer outside? it’s 1c currently…
Okay, so basically the printer simply will not work unless I find some way of printing the thingiverse ctc printer fan duct and install an additional 24v fan?
The problem here is that I cannot print the fan modification duct as the printer doesn’t work well enough. You need cooling to print the cooling! Catch 22!
Unfortunately there’s no magic answer here. This will all depend on the type of plastic being used. You will find there is a sweet spot. 5 house fans might be a little overkill, you will need some heat to get good inter later bonding, but then it must cool before the next layer. The print head is also a source of heat that will deform the lower layers. For your particular situation, a fan blowing across the printer, as well as a 20mm cube as tall as your model. This second model will pull the print head away for a bit of time.
The fan pointed at the motherboard is a good source for that fan. It was put there by makerbot to address a voltage regulator problem that our bots don’t suffer from. Generally you print a second duct with your first poorly printed duct, with much better results.
Have you calibrated the nozzle like I mentioned? Holes are usually under extrusion. How’s your extrusion multiplier?
again I suggest proftweak. Many people will be able to help you tune the printer. If you don’t have the y pillow blocks I suggest you download and print them as well. Will improve printing substantially. Your problem sound like tuning, the printer out of the box is decent enough with proper tuning. I did not have decent prints until I calibrated the nozzle, mine was over extruding.
Do not point fans at it, that will cool the extruded and your print will fail due to clogging or the firmware will stop the print for the inconsistent heating
