exxos blog - random goings on

[exxos]

Upped the head from 210 to 220 and it seems to be behaving again now.. I did lower the speed a bit as well.. so hopefully this setting will work for the full print..

[exxos]

What materials/temps are you using? ABS or PLA?

The blue stuff is ABS. The quality is amazing (when it behaves) :)

[rubber_jonnie]

What materials/temps are you using? ABS or PLA?

The blue stuff is ABS. The quality is amazing (when it behaves) :)

Yeah, the print quality is very nice indeed, I may have to try a roll of ABS.

Mind you, my last prints for the PSU case have been very much draft quality to get the insane print times down. I wouldn't want to go to a layer height of more than .3mm, or the quality will likely be nasty. At .3mm it is good enough for a box that sits on the floor.

I expect at .1mm it would be amazing, but I also expect the end of the universe to happen before the print finished!

[exxos]

Yeah, the print quality is very nice indeed, I may have to try a roll of ABS.

Mind you, my last prints for the PSU case have been very much draft quality to get the insane print times down. I wouldn't want to go to a layer height of more than .3mm, or the quality will likely be nasty. At .3mm it is good enough for a box that sits on the floor.

I expect at .1mm it would be amazing, but I also expect the end of the universe to happen before the print finished!

I'm using 0.12mm... slow print times indeed.. but the accuracy and quality is super nice.

My print failed again... thats the problem with it, hard to get faster speeds :(

I've lowered the stepper voltage to 80% as well, a whole lot less banging about now :)

[rubber_jonnie]

I'm using 0.12mm... slow print times indeed.. but the accuracy and quality is super nice.

My print failed again... thats the problem with it, hard to get faster speeds :(

I've lowered the stepper voltage to 80% as well, a whole lot less banging about now :)

Interesting, I don't have an option to drop stepper voltages (Or haven't found it), though to be fair I don't get any banging around, though that may be that there is a lot of overtravel space built in on all the axes.

I need to work out a way to speed things up without reducing quality. Even at .3mm it still took nearly 6 hours last night to print the other half of the PSU case (It finished about 01:00, and is still on the printer bed as I had no time this morning!).

Maybe I need to look at infil, see how changing that can speed stiff up. I don't like speeding up head speed (other than travel between points when not printing), as I worry about layer adhesion.

Maybe I can look at some of this stuff over the Easter weekend!.

[exxos]

I turned off infill for these tests.. It's surprising how much more filament it uses.. It pretty much jumped from 4.5M to 6M! I was using 15% before... And there is not really much mass to this box other than the bottom plate.

Speed wise it went up by about 10 minutes with the fill turned off. I was actually surprised about this, as I would have expected all the extra movements doing the hexfill would have been slower than just printing solid line. So a 15% fill seems to be a win-win really.

[rubber_jonnie]

I turned off infill for these tests.. It's surprising how much more filament it uses.. It pretty much jumped from 4.5M to 6M! I was using 15% before... And there is not really much mass to this box other than the bottom plate.

Speed wise it went up by about 10 minutes with the fill turned off. I was actually surprised about this, as I would have expected all the extra movements doing the hexfill would have been slower than just printing solid line. So a 15% fill seems to be a win-win really.

I used 20% infill on the PSU case, but it's so thick, so I don't think that would work in this scenario.

I'll have to load up my models again and try tweaking infill, see what the slicing results are, maybe go for 10% and try different infill patterns.

[exxos]

I used 20% infill on the PSU case, but it's so thick, so I don't think that would work in this scenario.

I'll have to load up my models again and try tweaking infill, see what the slicing results are, maybe go for 10% and try different infill patterns.

Do you get a time estimate ? Would be interesting to see what 20% fill vs 10% fill gives time wise.

[rubber_jonnie]

I used 20% infill on the PSU case, but it's so thick, so I don't think that would work in this scenario.

I'll have to load up my models again and try tweaking infill, see what the slicing results are, maybe go for 10% and try different infill patterns.

Do you get a time estimate ? Would be interesting to see what 20% fill vs 10% fill gives time wise.

When I slice an object in Cura, it gives you a time estimate when it finishes slicing, along with an option to save the file. I also use Repetier server to print, and it also gives an estimated time of completion and a percentage complete during printing.

Will try and get some screenshots when I next can.

[exxos]

Image doesn't do it justice.. but at least back on track :)

IMG_4035.JPG

IMG_4037.JPG

IMG_4038.JPG

Now trying 0.2mm print.. saved half a hour , so huge speed increase there!

To be continued...