The Bi-Mon 3D print Con- experiment

KrangPrime

Master Member
OK, you come up with a better title!

I've been experimenting with 3D printing over the last month or so. I've been looking for ways to put my new 3D printer through the ringer to really test it out and make it fun in the process.....So, enter this thread.

The idea is simple. You've seen those ' picture a day for a year' things on FB, right? Every two weeks, design a new object in CG from scratch. it can be anything from pop culture. Movies, music, TV. video Games. My areas of interest are 50s-80s, but it can also include modern stuff. Spend two weeks designing it. showing the development of the object in this thread, and then post a time lapse video of the print. If a user can guess what the object is, and someone likes it enough, we'll send it to them, free of charge.

It can be an R D2 part done to scale. it could be a Tom Servo done in 12" scale. It could be a stylized version of KITT. It could even be the left Shark from Katey Perry's football performance.

The idea is to hopefully get people out there creating stuff and interested in their own 3D printer build....hoping you can one day design things far better than I could ever attempt with my limited skill.

My Printer is not quite yet ready to start this experiment yet. it's circuit board needed reparing as it wasn't working right during fine tuning stages. but i'm hoping within a week or so it will be returned and we'll have the first test print going. once I get things fine tuned, we'll start the experiment.

10940588_10153011512665211_276941396664869195_n.jpg


These are some of the items I've had printed up in the last few weeks. my home made printer probably won't quite be up to the quality of a shapeways project...but if they can even come out halfway as good..this might be a fun little experiment.

10359551_10153026994300211_7317995875929899682_n.jpg



any suggestions on what should be done first?
 
Well, since no one else has responded to you yet... how about a Fallout 3 mini-nuke or the Man of Steel command key?
 
The man of steel command key sounds a tad simpler ;o) but looking up the mini nuke, that's cool too... on the list ;o).

The Printer Control board came back... .the Z Motors are now working. I just need to get my glass properly cut, and the printer calibrated, and we can start this experiment up....
 

Getting closer! After a breif fire, everything still works, and with proper wire attached, it went through the first print test successfully! tommorow we try it live.
and if it works a few times, we'll begin the bi mon 3D Print con experiment...with two prints every month!
 
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our first attempt, not so good alot.
11013071_10153120152995211_7467197397902415531_n.j  pg


but our second...


our first print! finally got it all working right apparently! now to run it through it's first simple tests. maybe ready for bi mon 3d print con in april.
 
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If you haven't already watched Thomas Sanladerer's videos on tuning your printer, go ahead and do that. The Prusa i3 is a great machine and you can easily get amazing prints off of it once it is setup well.
 
You need to do material tests for what you are printing. Filament will melt at a range of temperatures, but different colors (and honestly, different manufacturerers and even different batches) should be tested to find the optimal temperature. I will do this with each new spool, unless I am using the same color and batch. There are guides on how to zero in on an optimal temperature (including one by Thomas Sanladerer).

That said, 220 is definitely on the high end of what PLA likes.
 
wow, so even the color will be a different heat? so much new stuff to learn....

well,I'll try again tomorrow.... makerfarm thought maybe my thermistor wasn't set in all the way.. found out it was, but as I was setting the set screw back into the heater, I lost it and it vanished in the carpet, and I can't find my spares... sigh. new back coming tomorrow.
 
wow, so even the color will be a different heat? so much new stuff to learn....

The color more than anything else is what is important to do temperature tests on. Different additives will cause the material to behave and melt at different temperatures. You don't *have* to do a temperature test for every individual spool, so if you have a profile for like Black and Red and Natural then that should be sufficient. In general I try to stick to Natural ABS (which is different than White) since it won't have any additives to it. In my experience I have gotten more consistent results from Natural without having to tweak any settings for the filament or the printer.
 
I'm guessing either your temp is too high or you are over extruding. Look up guides/videos how to troubleshoot those 2 things.

Are you printing with a raft? If so then why?
 
I have the video you suggested book marked....but have not gotten around to it yet. makerfarm has been pretty excellent with support so far,so trying to go through their suggestions first.

you'll have to excuse my dumb noobness, but i'm also still learning the terms.....is a raft a physical item, or something added to the code?
right now, I am just using the basic cube code provided by makerfarm in their instruction video and the slicer software. I went through that precisely so I didn't change anything from it....there was no mention of a raft though.


If they say it's ok for the next test, I will try and lower the temperature a little asyou guys suggested and see what happens..
I believe someone said to try 190 for the extruder and 50 for the heat bed.

thanks for all the replies.. it's always over whelming learning new stuff
 
No need to excuse noobness, 3 years ago I had the same questions.

The raft is the lattice grid on the bottom of the object, it puts down a 1-3 layer gridwork - the raft - that your object prints onto. There should be an option somewhere in your slicing software to enable or disable a raft. What software are you using?

When you get around to calibrating temperature, give this a shot:

http://reprap.org/wiki/Triffid_Hunter's_Calibration_Guide#Nozzle_Temperature
 
At the moment, the recommended software is slicer.

I am currently printing cube 4. someone suggested a temp of 190 and 50...but for now, i'm trying 200 and 60. I'll check out the link.
 
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