3D Printers

[Stub Mandrel]

When i was a sea scout we used to polish/coat the fibreglass (polyester IIRC) canoes with a UV resistant compound once a year.

[upahill]

1 hour ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Wow where do you get this from? I must admit I have quite a collection of PLA and so not ordered any for sometime but I think the cheapest I found was around £15 on Amazon.

And Cheapskate, don't forget I am a Yorkshireman you don't get more cheapskate than that, we have a reputation to uphold you know 🙂 

Steve

Mostly eBay, just wait until a good deal comes up and buy as much as I can. Takes some sifting to get through the listings and find the ones that are actually cheap.

 

[Gina]

£15 per Kg is not very cost effective for cheap filament.  I paid around £30 for 2.2Kg of PLA from colorFabb which is less than £15/Kg and this is top quality filament.  I have tried cheap filament from both Amazon and ebay in the past and found the quality very variable and wasteful - not good VFM!!

[JamesF]

I can see I'm going to have to beef up my filament holder...

James

[Thalestris24]

5 minutes ago, Gina said:

£15 per Kg is not very cost effective for cheap filament.  I paid around £30 for 2.2Kg of PLA from colorFabb which is less than £15/Kg and this is top quality filament.  I have tried cheap filament from both Amazon and ebay in the past and found the quality very variable and wasteful - not good VFM!!

Their semi-matte black  looks nice - Euros 40/2.2kg not sure if there's a shipping charge? I suppose prices of goods from the Continent are likely to increase,...

Louise

[Thalestris24]

7 minutes ago, JamesF said:

I can see I'm going to have to beef up my filament holder...

James

Presumably one could wind from a big drum to a smaller one and keep the bulk stored away in a sealed container?

Louise

[JamesF]

1 minute ago, Thalestris24 said:

Presumably one could wind from a big drum to a smaller one and keep the bulk stored away in a sealed container?

Somehow I can't imagine myself being sufficiently bored to want to do that :D

James

[upahill]

9 minutes ago, Thalestris24 said:

Their semi-matte black  looks nice - Euros 40/2.2kg not sure if there's a shipping charge? I suppose prices of goods from the Continent are likely to increase,...

If you mean colorfabb I did look and it appears to be free to the UK by DHL

5 minutes ago, Thalestris24 said:

Presumably one could wind from a big drum to a smaller one and keep the bulk stored away in a sealed container?

I would consider a large plastic tub with a hole & filter on the side and a bar for it to rest on inside. That way 99% of it is sealed from dust etc.

[Gina]

Yes, delivery is free.

[JamesF]

25 minutes ago, Thalestris24 said:

Their semi-matte black  looks nice - Euros 40/2.2kg

I can't find it at that price?

James

[Thalestris24]

2 minutes ago, JamesF said:

I can't find it at that price?

James

Oops! My bad - it says 39.95 but then +40 for 2.2kg... That's rather pricey

[JamesF]

Just now, Thalestris24 said:

Oops! My bad - it says 39.95 but then +40 for 2.2kg... That's rather pricey

Ah, yes...

The PLA economy black is available on 2.2kg reels at less than £17/kg though, so I might well give that a go.  Doesn't look as though they have it in stock in larger sizes, though actually I think it might be cheaper per kg to buy two 2.2kg reels than one 4.5kg reel.

James

[JamesF]

1 minute ago, JamesF said:

I think it might be cheaper per kg to buy two 2.2kg reels than one 4.5kg reel.

For the economy PLA, this does appear to be the case.  Even the 8kg reels are more expensive per kg.

James

[Chriske]

Last Christmas, during sale, I bought 17(yep) 2.2 kg PLA(mostly)/PETG reels at Colorfab. Price back then was 26(!)€. Now I'm left with just 2 reels.
During next Black Friday there's a sale(again) at Colorfab. Don't know how low they'll go, just wait and see.

During these last 6 years I bought from different companies. I can only say, Colorfab PLA-eco and PETG-eco filament is top-quality.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

3 minutes ago, Chriske said:

Last Christmas, during sale, I bought 17(yep) 2.2 kg PLA(mostly)/PETG reels at Colorfab. Price back then was 26(!)€. Now I'm left with just 2 reels.
During next Black Friday there's a sale(again) at Colorfab. Don't know how low they'll go, just wait and see.

During these last 6 years I bought from different companies. I can only say, Colorfab PLA-eco and PETG-eco filament is top-quality.

Certainly one I will check out for sales from now on.

Steve

[Thalestris24]

I've been managing ok with the dodgy rotary encoder. I complained to Creality about it straightaway, but they said 'can I send a video?'. Well, I got around to making a video and sending it yesterday - took two attempts to send as they said not that address (Amazon Market Place) but this one - AmazonEU@Creality3d.cn. Anyway, they agreed to send me a replacement screen so I've no complaints

I printed out a part for the Lowspec yesterday. Took several hours. When it had all cooled down I tried to lift it off the mat. It wouldn't come off easily. Instead of just lifting the mat, for some reason I decided to tap it. Not a good idea as a column part of it snapped off! Tut! However, when I looked into it I realised that printing it at 30% infill just wasn't enough and I found on the Lowspec assembly instructions that I should be printing at between 50% and 80%, depending on the part. D'uh. Of course, that means it will take much longer to print some of the parts. It also says to print the main body at 200-250um - is that something I set in the Creality slicer? #LearningCurve

Cheers

Louise

 

 

[Chriske]

I most of the time print @35% infill, that's quit enough.
best is to post a picture of that broken part, so we can all see what can done about it.
Maybe adjust a few settings in slicer could help solving this problem. Or maybe the part you hit was to thin..?

[upahill]

Do you have the magnetic build sheet on your model? I thought it was quite flexible and parts should just pop off if you bend the build sheet. Ours was an older model without that sheet so havent had chance to try it.

Like Chriske says I rarely print over 35-40% infill for anything. Infact the majority of my infill is 10-20%.

You set the microns in the slicer as the layer height, so 0.2 - 0.25 layer height for the main body. Smaller layers increase the print time but make the finished output cleaner, larger layers are quick but not so pretty.

Regarding your screen, one of the issues I have had in the past with them is the ribbon cables seem particularly prone to picking up interference if run too close to power/bed cables. Could be worth considering checking for that next time you are having issues with it.

[Thalestris24]

12 minutes ago, Chriske said:

I most of the time print @35% infill, that's quit enough.
best is to post a picture of that broken part, so we can all see what can done about it.
Maybe adjust a few settings in slicer could help solving this problem. Or maybe the part you hit was to thin..?

Here's a pic of the break. I didn't 'whack' it, I just tapped it! The 'column' part (looking down on the broken end) is about 37mm long by 13x6mm. It's printed in pla+, by the way. As I say, the build instructions say 50-80% infill but I hadn't realised...

Louise

[upahill]

Infill looks a bit stringy there and might be printing too fast, can't quite tell but what are your layers looking like, any gaps between them?

 

[Thalestris24]

8 minutes ago, upahill said:

Do you have the magnetic build sheet on your model? I thought it was quite flexible and parts should just pop off if you bend the build sheet. Ours was an older model without that sheet so havent had chance to try it.

Like Chriske says I rarely print over 35-40% infill for anything. Infact the majority of my infill is 10-20%.

You set the microns in the slicer as the layer height, so 0.2 - 0.25 layer height for the main body. Smaller layers increase the print time but make the finished output cleaner, larger layers are quick but not so pretty.

Regarding your screen, one of the issues I have had in the past with them is the ribbon cables seem particularly prone to picking up interference if run too close to power/bed cables. Could be worth considering checking for that next time you are having issues with it.

Yes, has the magnetic sheet. And, yes, I normally lift it and bend it. Just for some reason I decided to tap the part instead! I'm now going by the designers instructions for 50-80%. The designer also says 100um resolution or 200-250um - so that's layer height?

Oh, I established that it appeared to be the knob/encoder it self. It works better if you kindof put some side pressure on it whilst turning. Anyway, they are sending the new one so hopefully that will fix it

Cheers

Louise

[Chriske]

was just looking too and there are a few issues there.
Bad bonding imo but if we could see a picture from somewhat aside. If it is a bonding problem, raising infill will not solve this.

[Thalestris24]

2 minutes ago, upahill said:

Infill looks a bit stringy there and might be printing too fast, can't quite tell but what are your layers looking like, any gaps between them?

 

I think it looks stringy because it's just not dense enough. There aren't any gaps between layers and the printed part otherwise looks very nice and smooth. I'm slowly learning the 'other' dark art

Louise

[Thalestris24]

Just now, Chriske said:

was just looking too and there are a few issues there.
Bad bonding imo but if we could see a picture from somewhat aside. If it is a bonding problem, raising infill will not solve this.

The base raft was still attached - I didn't bother taking it off as the part was broken. Here is pic of same part reprinted. Seems fine to me.

Louise 

[upahill]

16 minutes ago, Thalestris24 said:

The base raft was still attached - I didn't bother taking it off as the part was broken. Here is pic of same part reprinted. Seems fine to me.

Louise 

Looks good.

The problem with weak infill is it can be easily missed, once the top layers go on and cover it up it looks great, but the structural support it was also adding just isnt there. I ripped a picture off the net to demonstrate...

This infill would probably be good enough to support the top layer but isnt going to add much strength to the part, so when you knock it it could break. It's worth dialling in the settings for infill to give you the strongest possible parts. As with this part the external perimeters can look fine too, but the infill will often print using different speeds / overlap so needs to be tuned.

Another tip would be that a part like you printed probably wouldnt need a raft if the bed is nice and level. There is plenty of contact with the bed. You will get a cleaner finish on the bottom surface and save some material.

You must be over the moon to get parts like that though, took me months of fiddling with my first printer to get anything close to it. 👍

 

Edited October 26, 2019 by upahill