3D Printers
- Thread starter Supe
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Help Support Professional Engineer & PE Exam Forum:
I need to fix my 3D printer... (technically it's my son's but he's lost interest).
It has a clogged nozzle.
It has a clogged nozzle.
wilheldp_PE
PE, LEED AP, SPAM KING
The translucent orange PLA (Hatchbox) I used on that dumpster fire was...a dumpster fire. I had more issues with it than any other filament I've ever used. It was brand new when I started printing...bag was properly sealed, and had a desiccant packet in it. The filament was not brittle at any point during any of the failures. But the filament broke inside the extruder, between the geared pusher wheel and the hot end, SIX TIMES. Each time it caused a failed print because the filament sensor was still blocked by the upper half of the broken piece of filament. A lot of research directed me to disabling retractions. Apparently, with a lot of retractions, the geared wheel will grind the filament and work-harden it, making it brittle. I turned off retractions all together, and had my first successful print of the flames on the next try. It was a stringy mess, but nothing a blow torch couldn't fix.
Interestingly, that was a 15 hour print with retractions, but less than 12 hours without them. I didn't know retractions were that big of a time sink.
I'm slow.
When you shared the video of the dumpster fire, I didn't realized that was your print. I just assumed it was something cool you found online and were sharing.
Pretty sweet... especially with the lights!
I never heard back from you regarding using clear resins, but I can see from your video you are using translucent filament. I took a plastics lab in college and learned you can take a quick torch to cut ends of acrylic and they clear right up. I don't know what the polymer structure is of your cured plastics so I would print a few test samples and try different heat/torch finishes to see if it takes the dullness out. Here's an article that discusses a vaporizer technique.
Finishing surface of clear resin (like glas)
wilheldp_PE
PE, LEED AP, SPAM KING
That is actually the first translucent PLA I've used on my Prusa. All of the resin that I bought from Matterhackers is translucent. I kinda abandoned my resin printer and haven't printed anything on it in several months. It really is messy and finicky.
I actually experimented with acetone vapor smoothing of ABS parts with my old Solidoodle printer. It worked, but it was easy to "overexpose" the print to acetone which would wash out sharp features...the print actually melts if you leave it in too long or too hot. If I get around to doing some more resin prints, I'll try their spray acrylic trick and see how it comes out.
Couldn't get any local shops to pick up the phone, and was in need of some Fox 34 volume spacers for the mountain bike. Decided to 3d print them after finding a file online. Will find out if they fit! Appeared to come out OK for the most part in Hatchbox ABS. ABS definitely doesn't print as nice as PLA on my machine, but went way better than last time. Using a set of feeler gauges to set the nozzle gap to .2mm and dropping the temps down made a huge difference in first layer quality in particular. When I was printing some mock up parts for the car using a sheet of paper as a feeler gauge and higher bed/print temps, the first layer was repeatedly a mess and there was a ton of stringing.
wilheldp_PE
PE, LEED AP, SPAM KING
ABS is a pain in the ass. I've always had problems with it failing to stick to the print surface, and even when I forced it to stick with glue, the layers would separate. Anything that needs more strength or temperature resistance than PLA, I print in PETG these days.
matt267 PE
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What's everyone's experience with wood filament? My 14 y/o wants to try it out. Any brand suggestions?
I'm still using the original textured bed with purple glue stick and never seem to have any adhesion issues. I actually never intended to print in ABS, but ended up with a roll when I mis-ordered off Amazon once thinking it was PLA.
I haven't tried wood filament, but the recurring consensus seems to be to use a 0.6mm or larger nozzle to prevent clogging, and preferably use a steel nozzle over brass to minimize wear as some of them can be abrasive.
wilheldp_PE
PE, LEED AP, SPAM KING
Never used it
I've done the same thing...twice. And I figured out why the second time. When you click on a spool of Hatchbox PLA, and there are other suggested items on the Amazon page, most of the time, those suggestions are ABS. I think they do it intentionally to get rid of ABS since nobody uses it any more. I kept the first spool. I sent back the next 3.
I think in my case (also Hatchbox on Amazon), it was the one where there were a zillion "options" to choose from that all seemed to be either color or weight specific, but I clicked on the "other" black one which happened to be ABS.
