[Sticky] 3D Printer Corner

@pakabol

Just ordered these brass nozzles:  AnyCubic pack of five nozzles

From Amazon as you can see and they will get here tomorrow.

Updates later.

Posted by: @codecage

Maybe I should try some of the stainless steel nozzles.  Have you heard anything either good or bad about them?

from what ive seen on YT they are alot better the only down side is that you need to run them a bit hotter because they dont disperse heat as well as the brass ones 

@codecage from what i've read/seen on YouTube, the steel nozzles are mostly used for abrasive filaments which contain metal etc...

Posted by: @zeferby

but I can tell you i've been fed up very quickly with the manual bed leveling hassle !

i feel your pain on that it does get quite annoying 

@zeferby

Thanks for the post Eric!

I haven't messed with changing retraction yet, but may take a look at it.  If you change retraction is there anything that needs adjusting for when you begin extruding again?  Or is that something that is taken into account by Cura?

Pakabol and I have the ANET A8 Plus and now I have you listed in my 3D printer notes too.

@pakabol

While I have been checking my bed leveling from time to time I haven't really been making many adjustments.  Yes it's a pain to check, but since I'm not constantly making adjustment I don't find it too objectionable, YET!

@codecage

This is what my retract* options look like for a Creality black PLA.

Cura handles the retraction/detraction in the gcode, so if you retract Xmm it should detract Xmm when continuing the print after moving the hotend

And here are my infill* options :

@zeferby

Thanks Eric!  Very good info.  That's what I was hoping for on this thread so we could share our experiences without having to bother those not interested but also a repository for those that come along later and get on the 3D printer bad wagon.

Posted by: @zeferby

steel nozzles are mostly used for abrasive filaments which contain metal etc...

I've been printing a lot of carbon fiber lately, and I love the way the steel handles it

Doesn't do so well on the PETG tho, and I ran out of PLA, so I can't say anything about that

@spyder

What has been your experience?  Besides using steel nozzles, what other advice can you offer?

Hot end temp, bed temp, and other important slicer settings, especially if you are using Cura.

Are the parts much heavier as compared to PLA or PETG?  What is your application for using carbon fiber and do you have a favorite brand?

Lots of questions, but us sponges want to absorb as much as we can. ? 

I started out using the CF cuz of the strength. Remember tho, it's only strong in one direction, it still delaminates if stressed along the layers. I'm printing THIS SPOOL of THIS BATCH at 210C with the bed at 65C, and it's coming out nice. I was thinking of turning up the temp to see if that made a difference in the layer strength, but, it's coming out so nice, I didn't really wanna change it, and what I'm printing now doesn't really require strength

The detail is really amazing compared to PLA. Stringing was an issue til I got the retraction figured out (which changes per batch, along with temp and speed, and which parts yer concerned with the stringing on)

This piece is a case for an esp32, the nubs at the small distance are about 1CM and the longer distance is about 2.5CM (my camera doesn't focus well at this distance) Typically you'd see the strings in between the nubs of the standoffs, so I got THAT part of the retraction right...

But, if you look over at the side of it...

You'll see that it wasn't consistent. (I think this was not enough on the restart) I retracted 1.5MM and only recovered .2MM (The rough edges at the bottom are where I peeled off the brim. I haven't cleaned it yet. I just now took it off the printer)

This was printed at 20% infill at .1 layer height with a .4 steel nozzle. I can go down as far as .06 before it stops making a difference. 

You'll also notice the speed is really slow

That's cuz I was getting some "ghosting". Usually that's due to belts being loose, but they're nice and tight, so that wasn't it, another reason is cuz the belts are stretching, and since I've upgraded to steel belted belts, it's probably not stretching, and the other reason is cuz it's printing too fast. The Anet A8 (and the PLUS) are direct drive printers, which means that the extruder motor is mounted right on top of the extruder. And those Nema17 motors aren't exactly light. So all 3 of Newton's laws of motion come heavily into play here, which left speed, so I slowed it down

You'll notice that even tho I'm printing this at .1mm, and that I've got the first layer at .3mm. I'm also printing the first layer much slower than the rest. The slower is cuz I want it to stick to the bed firmly, and the .3 is cuz I wanna be able to get my spatula thing (I use a sharpened paint scraper. REALLY sharp. But I only sharpened one side of it. And I still have to use a hammer once I get it under) underneath it. So, I want it to stick to the bed, but I also wanna be able to get it OFF. If I don't do this correctly, the painter's tape that I put on the glass becomes part of the print, and you can't peel it off, so you end up sanding it off, which is a stupid waste of time

The weight, when printing at 100% infill is actually quite heavy. I printed tank treads for one of my test robots at 100% and, wow, those things weigh a ton. In fact, they weigh so much that I switched over to uniwheels cuz they were bogging down the motors

I've printed parts to repair a wheel chair, and a walker. The walker part didn't hold any weight, but, it was for the brake lever, so it did have stress, but, the wheel chair part was for the seat part, which held the weight of a human...

It's still holding

This particular brand is from "Balitensen", which, for some reason, is no longer available, so, I guess this is my last roll of this brand. I've had good luck with the "Ziro" brand of PLA, so, I'm thinking that when this roll finishes, I might try that one, cuz the filler (for this brand anyway, haven't looked into Ziro yet) is PLA. But, again, different brand, different formula, probably different ratio of CF to PLA. The stuff I've got now, you can tell just by looking at it on the spool, is rough. It's not shiny like PLA or PETG. You can rub your finger on it and FEEL the roughness

Another nice thing about this filament is that it sands really well. Not that it's EASY to sand. It takes some patience (with 150 grit, and don't even THINK about using a dremel or belt sander. Remember, it's still plastic, which tends to get all melty when it gets overly warm)

I'm no longer using Cura, so I can't tell you about settings for that, I'm using IdeaMaker now. I liked the old version of Cura that worked with OctoPrint, but, when they released the new version, I didn't like it. For some reason it didn't import my settings correctly and it never printed right again. I tried going back to the older version, but, it didn't work out well

As for the PETG, I'm gonna take the steel nozzle off the other printer, and see if going back to the brass makes a difference, cuz, right now, with the steel nozzle, it's coming out UGLY

The R2D2 costume I built for Otto came out just HORRIBLE

I think that covers all yer questions

@spyder

IdeaMaker looks like it is made for Raised3D printers.  Is that the printer you have or will it work for other printers as well?  I've downloaded it and the Manual Zip file, but haven't delved into it yet.

Posted by: @codecage

IdeaMaker looks like it is made for Raised3D printers

Yup, it looks that way, doesn't it ?

Posted by: @codecage

Is that the printer you have

Nope. I've got 2 Anet A8's

Posted by: @codecage

will it work for other printers as well?

Yup. That's the beauty of most of these things (most anyway) Just input the proper parameters and (most) stuff works. What won't work is that it won't act as host for my printers, but I don't want it to anyway cuz I've got OctoPrint, which is worlds better anyway

There's probably a way to fool it into acting as a host for my printer, but, like I said, I don't want it, or need it to so I never put more than 12 seconds worth of thought process into it

The only thing that you have to do is after you slice, and the "export" window pops up, instead of trying to send it to your printer, just send it to a folder instead, which I would do anyway.

I can't imagine a scenario where I wouldn't want to keep a copy of the gcode I just sliced, so why send it directly to the printer without first saving it ? Makes no sense. I've got a copy of all my stl's, and everything I've ever sliced, granted, a bunch is stored on my NAS cuz I'll probably never use it again, and yes, I delete most of it off the printer so I don't have to scroll thru the screen to find what I'm looking for, but it's all saved somewhere

@spyder

I use OctoPrint as well, so don't store anything on the printers SD card either.

Have you messed around with Swappy, the Mars Rover replica, files and tried to print any of them?  Some of mine have come out pretty rough looking and I'm assuming that I just don't have things dialed in quite right.