Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...
-
I finally bought myself a 3D printer to play with!
Marvel at my brand new Prusa i3 all calibrated and printing triceratops_skull_150um!
Go me. I spend lots of money on toys.
-
@blakeyrat said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
I spend lots of money on toys.
Living the dream.
As you are a stickler for UI and UX I would value your opinion on usability in a week or so after you have time to get used to it.
-
@polygeekery said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
UX
Mine has a weird problem that seems to be unheard of (it's not the same model Blakeyrat has), in that it generates burs all over the place.
I've searched many places, but can't seem to find good tips on how to fix it, and it keeps ruining things that are print-in-place mechanicals, like the lotus flower box toy.
-
First print.
Not bad. This model has a lot of cruft that has to be cut off though.
-
I never saw the point in these things. But then again, I am not at all handy, and would probably just hurt myself trying to use it. So, good for you.
-
@blakeyrat I recommend using PETG as plastic material instead of PLA if you want to take things further.
PETG has the advantages of both PLA and ABS with less of the disadvantages. Nozzle temperature is higher (~230 °C), bed temperature should be around 60 °C and the fan should run at only 50% after the first three layers (fan off for the first three), but other than that... The Prusa Slic3r has good defaults for the various materials, though.
Only real disadvantage: PETG doesn't work as well with overhangs (which you can test with the Benchy model).
-
@cartman82 said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
I never saw the point in these things.
There isn't any. Yet.
-
@gąska said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
I never saw the point in these things.
There isn't any. Yet.
With all the technology becoming more complicated and miniaturized, I can't imagine we are going towards the future where ordinary people can meaningfully maintain their machines with printed parts or even produce machines on their own. I guess 3D printers might be useful for small-scale manufacturing, though.
-
@cartman82 said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
@gąska said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
I never saw the point in these things.
There isn't any. Yet.
With all the technology becoming more complicated and miniaturized, I can't imagine we are going towards the future where ordinary people can meaningfully maintain their machines with printed parts or even produce machines on their own.
It has less to do with technology and more with manufacturers figuring out letting people fix stuff themselves is unprofitable.
I guess 3D printers might be useful for small-scale manufacturing, though.
With "small" meaning "<100 units". I think it's more fit for rapid prototyping than actual manufacturing.
-
@gąska said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
@cartman82 said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
I never saw the point in these things.
There isn't any. Yet.
For private/hobby use maybe. But I've 3D printed parts for prototypes for my dad that would have been quite a pain to machine any other way, and especially repeatedly (even for the ~5 pieces we needed). So they can come in handy in some situations.
-
@akko the question is, whether it's still a good idea if you include the price of printer itself. If you have it lying around anyway, sure, use it if it helps - but it doesn't tell much about feasibility of 3D printers for businesses in general.
And as I mentioned earlier, prototyping is probably the only sensible use of it.
-
@gąska said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
@akko the question is, whether it's still a good idea if you include the price of printer itself. If you have it lying around anyway, sure, use it if it helps - but it doesn't tell much about feasibility of 3D printers for businesses in general.
US$769 if you assemble it yourself, plus materials, electricity, etc. For that price, you can have somebody like Shapeways print quite a lot of stuff for you before it becomes more economical to have your own, I’d say.
And as I mentioned earlier, prototyping is probably the only sensible use of it.
If you have a hobby that requires custom bits to be made, then that’s sensible use of it too, I’d say.
-
@gurth everything related to your hobby is sensible by definition. Saying that something makes sense for a hobby is a tautology.
-
@gąska the Green Bay serial killer strangled women for fun
-
@bb36e
But he didn't use 3D printed ropes, did he? Laggard.
-
@gąska said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
@akko the question is, whether it's still a good idea if you include the price of printer itself. If you have it lying around anyway, sure, use it if it helps - but it doesn't tell much about feasibility of 3D printers for businesses in general.
And as I mentioned earlier, prototyping is probably the only sensible use of it.
The price alone wouldn't have been an issue for my father's professional use. Starting a print and checking back regularly to see if it's still printing saves a lot of time compared to working with the mill/lathe/etc and that saved time more than cancels out the price of the printer.
However, if we count the time we spent on building the printer (it was a kit), getting familiar with it and tuning all the parameters it wasn't a sensible choice. Not for that one project alone. He didn't buy the printer primarily to save money though, so that's ok.
-
@gąska said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
There isn't any. Yet.
Quick! A Blakeyrat thread! Everybody come in and piss all over it! Remember, if Blakeyrat does a thing it must be stupid and wrong, so better tell him so! Quick, you don't want to get even 3 posts of actual conversation before the bashing begins!
Just ignore the topic and move on? But then how would Blakeyrat know he's a dumb stupid dumbass? You gotta post that stuff, man.
-
I have a Monoprice printer that's a clone of the Prusa i3. There are probably some minor differences, but here are some hardware tips that might apply:
- The bed heater is plugged into an undersized power circuit on the mainboard, and it can cause a spectacular failure (think housefire). This can be fixed by adding a MOSFET board to allow the bed heater to draw power straight from the power supply instead. https://www.amazon.com/initeq-MOSFET-Printer-Controller-Current/dp/B073QGHTZL
- I switched to a borosilicate glass print bed because it's supposedly better. I'm not sure if it's any better or not, and I have to coat the glass with a glue stick to get prints to stick now. At least I don't have to deal with the giant sticker pad thingies, I guess.
- The stock hotend has a PTFE tube that will eventually melt and ruin everything, especially if you try to print a high-temp material like PETG. Micro Swiss has a replacement part that is all-metal. https://www.amazon.com/Micro-Hotend-SLOTTED-Cooling-Wanhao/dp/B01E1HANLS
- Keep a spare supply of nozzles, cooling blocks, thermistors, heater cartridges, and the ceramic heat shield tape on hand. These things all fail or sometimes plug up spectacularly. I couldn't find a link for compatible nozzles, the MicroSwiss hotend needs M7 threads but 99.99% of all nozzles including the ones MicroSwiss sells individually are M6 instead
- If you ever get into ABS, you need to build an enclosure or all prints larger than tiny will fail by cracking or warping. I put acrylic side panels on a cheap Wal-Mart end table and set it over the printer. This keeps heat in and prevents ABS prints from cooling during the print. Also, your house will smell like a tire fire when printing ABS. It is what it is.
- Store your filament in a plastic bin with desiccant. Filament absorbs water from the air and it will cause printing issues. Also, avoid Monoprice filament. I can't recommend a brand yet because I haven't done enough experimentation, but about 40% of my Monoprice-sourced filament was unusable. It had hard spots that wouldn't melt, and all hell breaks loose when those hit the hotend. It can be hours of work getting things unclogged and usable again.
- Finally, if you ever have to disassemble the printer, turn it off before unplugging any stepper motors or you could blow out the stepper drivers. This hasn't bit me yet but I've heard about it, and I had a habit of disassembling things while it's on because I needed the hotend to be hot to fix a clog that I couldn't correct while it's all together. Turn it off, unplug the steppers (usually the extruder stepper in my case), turn it on, then heat it up and disassemble.
I think that covers about everything I've had to deal with so far. But I'm sure some crazy new error will happen the next time I power it up. 3D printers are about 40% fun and 60% cursing and swearing and stupid hacks and repair jobs.
-
@blakeyrat said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
@gąska said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
There isn't any. Yet.
Quick! A Blakeyrat thread! Everybody come in and piss all over it! Remember, if Blakeyrat does a thing it must be stupid and wrong, so better tell him so! Quick, you don't want to get even 3 posts of actual conversation before the bashing begins!
Just ignore the topic and move on? But then how would Blakeyrat know he's a dumb stupid dumbass? You gotta post that stuff, man.
If anyone else bragged about buying 3D printer, I would say the same thing. If it was just a general topic about 3D printers without anyone bragging about anything, I would still say the same thing. If the topic wasn't even about 3D printers but it just so happened that it's relevant to the discussion for me to say that 3D printers are unlikely to be worth the investment, I would still say the same thing. Not everything is about you, even in the topics you create.
Note that I have NOT said that what you're doing is stupid. I was talking specifically about getting 3D printer for business, which as far as I can tell, isn't what you're doing. 3D printers are cool. Printing on them is lots of fun. I'd totally like to have a 3D printer myself. The only reason I didn't buy one yet is because there are 50 other things for similar price that I want even more.
-
@blakeyrat said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
Quick! A Blakeyrat thread! Everybody come in and piss all over it!
No one did that.
-
@mott555 said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
I have a Monoprice printer that's a clone of the Prusa i3.
Are you sure? The i3 just came out. I mean it's an open source design so they can clone it pretty quick I guess. They don't have any printers listed on their website that look anything like this one.
@mott555 said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
The bed heater is plugged into an undersized power circuit on the mainboard, and it can cause a spectacular failure (think housefire). This can be fixed by adding a MOSFET board to allow the bed heater to draw power straight from the power supply instead. https://www.amazon.com/initeq-MOSFET-Printer-Controller-Current/dp/B073QGHTZL
I find it very hard to believe that this company sent me a printer that's a fire hazard.
@mott555 said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
I switched to a borosilicate glass print bed because it's supposedly better.
Interesting. Can you still flex it to remove the prints?
@mott555 said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
Store your filament in a plastic bin with desiccant.
Prusa already bagged them, sucked the air out, and put in one of those moisture absorber things. The plastic currently on the spool might be a problem I guess... not much I can do about that at the moment. Maybe I'll head to a box store and buy a plastic bin to store them in later.
@mott555 said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
But I'm sure some crazy new error will happen the next time I power it up.
Well I'm hoping this thing will be reliable. Thanks for the advice.
-
@gąska said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
If anyone else bragged about buying 3D printer, I would say the same thing.
Well maybe stop being a jackass to everybody? Maybe that's the hint you should be taking here. "I'm not just a jackass to you! I'm a jackass to everybody!" "Gee, thanks, I feel much better!"
-
@blakeyrat said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
Are you sure? The i3 just came out. I mean it's an open source design so they can clone it pretty quick I guess. They don't have any printers listed on their website that look anything like this one.
As far as I know, the i3 came out in 2012.
@blakeyrat said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
I find it very hard to believe that this company sent me a printer that's a fire hazard.
Like I said, it might or might not apply. YMMV.
@blakeyrat said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
Interesting. Can you still flex it to remove the prints?
No. Sometimes I have to use a paint scraper, but most prints seem to unstick on their own once everything cools down and I can just pick it up.
@blakeyrat said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
Prusa already bagged them, sucked the air out, and put in one of those moisture absorber things. The plastic currently on the spool might be a problem I guess... not much I can do about that at the moment. Maybe I'll head to a box store and buy a plastic bin to store them in later.
It's not a problem for new, unopened filament. Those won't go bad. But if you switch filament types or colors a bunch, you'll have a bunch of rolls that are now exposed to air.
-
@mott555 said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
As far as I know, the i3 came out in 2012.
Yes, my fault, I've been saying it wrong, it's the i3 MARK3. Prusa is not good at clear unambiguous naming of products.
The Mark 3 has only been out a few weeks.
Anyway it says they rebuilt the extruder so maybe it's more reliable, let's hope.
-
@blakeyrat said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
@mott555 said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
As far as I know, the i3 came out in 2012.
Yes, my fault, I've been saying it wrong, it's the i3 MARK3. Prusa is not good at clear unambiguous naming of products.
The Mark 3 has only been out a few weeks.
In that case you can probably disregard half of my post. Especially since that printer is over three times the cost of mine.
-
@blakeyrat you know what? I might switch to being jackass only to you specifically, after all. It's only fair this way.
Look. I wasn't trying to be asshole. I didn't come here to shit on anyone. I'm just taking part in the discussion that occurs here, like everyone else.
-
Since I'm a bit of noob when it comes to 3D printing (I've not got the chance to do anything yet -- blame also the lack of ideas): what's the process for getting something printed? I.e., I guess you need to pick up a 3D model from somewhere that conforms to some design s pecs (format?) and then you use some custom software to send it to the printer? (USB? Do you leave the computer connected?) What timeframe is one looking at there (e.g. for the model that was @blakeyrat's first print?)?
What about supports and so on? Do these get added automagically, or do you need to model them yourself?
-
@cvi said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
Since I'm a bit of noob when it comes to 3D printing (I've not got the chance to do anything yet -- blame also the lack of ideas): what's the process for getting something printed? I.e., I guess you need to pick up a 3D model from somewhere that conforms to some design s pecs (format?) and then you use some custom software to send it to the printer? (USB? Do you leave the computer connected?) What timeframe is one looking at there (e.g. for the model that was @blakeyrat's first print?)?
What about supports and so on? Do these get added automagically, or do you need to model them yourself?
The standard file format for a 3D model here is STL, which is then converted into gcode by a program called a slicer. STLs are generic, gcode may be printer-specific. Gcode is a list of low-level commands, such as "Move nozzle 12mm on the Y axis, extrude for 3 mm, retract." Kind of like GDI. Ish.
My printer is plugged into a Raspberry Pi via USB, and the Pi runs OctoPrint. It has a web server that hosts a web page that controls/configures everything. I can drag-and-drop an STL onto the interface and it will save it to the Pi and let me pick a slicer profile. Run the slicer, load the gcode, then print. Slicer profiles control things like print speed, layer height, fans on/off, whether or not there are support structures, nozzle temperatures, print bed temperatures, and about a billion other things I don't understand and haven't had to mess with yet.
A lot of printers can also print straight from an SD card but that isn't as flexible or as powerful as OctoPrint. You can plug straight into a Windows PC via USB but it isn't recommended because Windows isn't real-time enough, e.g. virus scanners might steal CPU cycles from the print job and then cause a print failure, or Windows Updates might decide to to a full-system upgrade 17 hours into an 18-hour print job and ruin everything. No such issue if you use a Pi as a controller.
-
@blakeyrat said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
get even 3 posts of actual conversation
How's the surface finish from that printer? That's one of the, probably the, key features I'll be looking for if/when I ever buy a printer. That and printing PLA, which (I think?) eliminates liquid resin-type printers. One of my main uses will be models for lost-wax (plastic) casting, and my understanding is that PLA is the material of choice for that. Another likely use is miniature figures and other objects for model railroad layouts. In either case, I'd be printing pretty small objects where finish is very important, and I'd like to minimize the amount of post-print clean-up needed. I've seen printers that would be suitable, but mostly they're high-end, $$$$ models. Any potential purchase is sufficiently far in the future that I haven't put in significant research, yet, but I'm still interested in picking up anecdata when I find it.
-
@cvi said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
(USB? Do you leave the computer connected?)
The model I bought can print from USB, but they recommend using a SD card. If you use USB they warn you that if your computer goes to sleep, reboots, or goes out of communication for any reason, it can ruin the print. So the SD card makes it more self-contained.
@cvi said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
What timeframe is one looking at there (e.g. for the model that was @blakeyrat's first print?)?
About 6 hours, which is roughly what I expected from talking to my friends who do 3D printing.
-
@mott555 The slicer will tell you if you violate any of the limits? Like having too thin parts or something.
@blakeyrat So you just put the gcode mentioned by @mott555 on the SD card, plug in the SD card into the printer and then wait for the whatever hours it takes to finish? Hmm, that sounds fairly doable. (We have a 3D printer at work that's largely unused, but I've not taken the time to find an excuse to do something with it yet.)
-
@cvi said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
The slicer will tell you if you violate any of the limits? Like having too thin parts or something.
Nope. At least in my case, you have to know the printer's limits. It will happily spit out gcode that is physically impossible for the printer for various reasons, and the printer will happily attempt to follow bad or nonsensical gcode. Some examples are printing an object larger than the printer's build area, or doing overhangs without supports (which can result in some interesting nonfunctional objects), or picking temperature settings that are incompatible with your filament. Most such things are pretty obvious to check yourself before printing, once you understand where things can go wrong.
There's other stuff you can't check for and you just have to try it and see what happens. I have a B2 Spirit model I want to print as a desk toy for work, but I have had a 100% failure rate on that model. Every time, the print becomes unstuck from the print bed, and then you get a tangled ball of spaghetti-looking thing. The printer can't tell when it fails and it just keeps piling on filament and nothing makes sense anymore. The most annoying part is I'm not sure why that happens with this model or how to correct it.
This isn't my image, but it gives you a general idea of just how wrong things can go.
-
@hardwaregeek said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
How's the surface finish from that printer?
I don't know how to measure that. I can say the bumpy triceratops skull is bumpy?
@hardwaregeek said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
That and printing PLA, which (I think?) eliminates liquid resin-type printers.
Is that the kind of plastic that's cured by exposing it to UV light? When I was researching this purchase it looked like that was kind of too new to be cheap/reliable yet.
EDIT: no, PLA is the standard plastic, the one that shipped with my printer.
@cvi said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
@blakeyrat So you just put the gcode mentioned by @mott555 on the SD card, plug in the SD card into the printer and then wait for the whatever hours it takes to finish?
Yeah pretty much. The printer I have has a on-screen display to select the file you want to print from the card. That's pretty much all there is to it.
@mott555 said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
Nope. At least in my case, you have to know the printer's limits. It will happily spit out gcode that is physically impossible for the printer for various reasons, and the printer will happily attempt to follow bad or nonsensical gcode.
One quirk I found with the Prusa printers is that if you want it to turn itself off when the print is done (and you likely do), you need to put those instructions in the gcode. If you fail to do this, it could keep the nozzle heater on for too long and clog it all up.
It struck me as a weird/bad design that the print definition file is responsible for this and not the printer's software/firmware.
-
I just got a Raise 3D N2 Plus, a very expensive (close to $4000) printer that was the lowest-end thing I could find without an abysmally tiny print size. And this will only do up to about 24"x12"x12", but my wife and I couldn't justify anything bigger. (She was very enthusiastic about getting one, though, because she's big into cosplay and costume designing, and this could help in a lot of ways.)
So far I'm really enjoying it. It's got good quality for its builds. A bit slow, but things come out well, if you can get a good gcode. The 3D software that came with it isn't the best, and it can take a bit of tweaking to come up with the right model, but once you have that you're likely to get a good print.
It came with a glass build plate and a metal spatula-like scraper to remove models from it. Models tend to stick to it--and the smaller the model the harder it sticks--but once you get the spatula under any bit of it, it's easy to use it to peel off the rest.
It isn't tethered to my computer for control; you just have to feed it a gcode file to print, either from a USB stick, a SD card, or over wi-fi, and then it will run the print autonomously.
I've had one notable build fail. I got home from work yesterday, 2 days into a 5-day build, and found that one of the build plate clips had come free, causing the plate to slip an inch or so, which ruined the build. I'm looking into what can cause this and how to fix it, and will start over tomorrow when the new filament arrives. But other than that, I've really enjoyed working with it.
-
@masonwheeler said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
I've had one notable build fail. I got home from work yesterday, 2 days into a 5-day build, and found that one of the build plate clips had come free, causing the plate to slip an inch or so, which ruined the build.
The Prusa one has a really strong permanent magnet holding the plate in place. (Strong enough that you fear you're going to bend the sheet steel when you have to remove it, you need to use a lot of muscle.)
Since you only remove the sheet steel at most once every 6 hours, they could have just put 2 screw holes in it and let the user screw it down. But the magnet seems to work.
-
@gurth said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
US$769 if you assemble it yourself
It starts way lower than this ($159.99)
-
@mott555 said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
I have a Monoprice printer that's a clone of the Prusa i3. There are probably some minor differences, but here are some hardware tips that might apply:
He has the Mk3 - that's most likely resulting in quite a bit of a difference.
- The bed heater is plugged into an undersized power circuit on the mainboard, and it can cause a spectacular failure (think housefire). This can be fixed by adding a MOSFET board to allow the bed heater to draw power straight from the power supply instead. https://www.amazon.com/initeq-MOSFET-Printer-Controller-Current/dp/B073QGHTZL
No need for that with the Mk3.
- I switched to a borosilicate glass print bed because it's supposedly better. I'm not sure if it's any better or not, and I have to coat the glass with a glue stick to get prints to stick now. At least I don't have to deal with the giant sticker pad thingies, I guess.
The mk3 ships with a PEI treated steel sheet that's flexible. Didn't need glue for PLA and PETG yet.
- The stock hotend has a PTFE tube that will eventually melt and ruin everything, especially if you try to print a high-temp material like PETG. Micro Swiss has a replacement part that is all-metal. https://www.amazon.com/Micro-Hotend-SLOTTED-Cooling-Wanhao/dp/B01E1HANLS
Again, redesigned Mk3. Not an issue.
- Keep a spare supply of nozzles, cooling blocks, thermistors, heater cartridges, and the ceramic heat shield tape on hand. These things all fail or sometimes plug up spectacularly. I couldn't find a link for compatible nozzles, the MicroSwiss hotend needs M7 threads but 99.99% of all nozzles including the ones MicroSwiss sells individually are M6 instead
Didn't have an issue with failing parts yet.
- If you ever get into ABS, you need to build an enclosure or all prints larger than tiny will fail by cracking or warping. I put acrylic side panels on a cheap Wal-Mart end table and set it over the printer. This keeps heat in and prevents ABS prints from cooling during the print. Also, your house will smell like a tire fire when printing ABS. It is what it is.
If you build an enclosure you need to remove the power supply from the inside of the enclosure first because you'll severely shorten its lifespan otherwise.
- Store your filament in a plastic bin with desiccant. Filament absorbs water from the air and it will cause printing issues. Also, avoid Monoprice filament. I can't recommend a brand yet because I haven't done enough experimentation, but about 40% of my Monoprice-sourced filament was unusable. It had hard spots that wouldn't melt, and all hell breaks loose when those hit the hotend. It can be hours of work getting things unclogged and usable again.
Depends on the type of plastic. Also takes a while for it to become an issue.
-
@masonwheeler said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
without an abysmally tiny print size.
Yeah, mine is 12 cm. It's pretty small...
-
@timebandit said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
@gurth said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
US$769 if you assemble it yourself
It starts way lower than this ($159.99)
I was referring to the model Blakey appears to have, as the conversation is basically about that one, IMHO.
-
@rhywden said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
The mk3 ships with a PEI treated steel sheet that's flexible. Didn't need glue for PLA and PETG yet.
It was supposed to ship with a textured powder-coated PEI surface, but apparently Prusa has had supplier problems so they shipped their normal one. According to the manual the only maintenance needed is to wash it with dish soap and water occasionally.
-
@hardwaregeek said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
@blakeyrat said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
get even 3 posts of actual conversation
How's the surface finish from that printer? That's one of the, probably the, key features I'll be looking for if/when I ever buy a printer. That and printing PLA, which (I think?) eliminates liquid resin-type printers. One of my main uses will be models for lost-wax (plastic) casting, and my understanding is that PLA is the material of choice for that. Another likely use is miniature figures and other objects for model railroad layouts. In either case, I'd be printing pretty small objects where finish is very important, and I'd like to minimize the amount of post-print clean-up needed. I've seen printers that would be suitable, but mostly they're high-end, $$$$ models. Any potential purchase is sufficiently far in the future that I haven't put in significant research, yet, but I'm still interested in picking up anecdata when I find it.
Here:
Red is PETG, silver is PLA. PETG has some slight issues with stringing but nothing serious.
-
@rhywden Welcome to several hours ago. And my power supply is a separate unit attached by a cable bundle so yeah it's outside the enclosure.
-
@blakeyrat said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
@rhywden said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
The mk3 ships with a PEI treated steel sheet that's flexible. Didn't need glue for PLA and PETG yet.
It was supposed to ship with a textured powder-coated PEI surface, but apparently Prusa has had supplier problems so they shipped their normal one. According to the manual the only maintenance needed is to wash it with dish soap and water occasionally.
I'd also get some Isopropanol and Windex.
-
@mott555 said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
@rhywden Welcome to several hours ago. And my power supply is a separate unit attached by a cable bundle so yeah it's outside the enclosure.
Prusa actually has a guideline how to convert their MK3 to use an enclosure.
-
@rhywden The "Ikea Lack" build is pretty close to what I did, although mine is pretty redneck. The acrylic panels are held on by magnets, and I can just pick up the top table to get it out of the way.
-
@rhywden said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
Red is PETG, silver is PLA.
Thanks. The PLA definitely has some visible ridges from the layers and some bumpiness in what I assume is direction of the print head travel. I've seen a lot worse, but I'd still need to sand the objects before casting them. The layers in the PETG are less visible, although the random bumpiness seems greater; they might be ok with just minor clean-up for projects where the final product is plastic, although I'd probably have to sand lightly or something to degloss for paint to stick.
-
@hardwaregeek You can do an acetone vapor bath with ABS which will melt away all the ridges. I haven't tried it yet, but many online claim the final appearance isn't too far off from injection-molded parts.
-
@mott555 Cool. I assume something similar could be done for at least some of the other materials. I wonder if acetone would be too aggressive for PLA.
-
@hardwaregeek said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
@mott555 Cool. I assume something similar could be done for at least some of the other materials. I wonder if acetone would be too aggressive for PLA.
Acetone does nothing to PLA. PETG needs something like cyclohexanone.
-
@rhywden Do you happen to know what would work for PLA?
@rhywden said in Today in Blakeyrat is always several years behind in every tech trend news...:
cyclohexanone
My only experience with cyclohexa-anything was with cyclohexene, and that is an experience I would prefer to avoid repeating, and so, I'm sure, would my downwind neighbors. Combine that with the generally less than pleasant odor of ketones, and it doesn't sound fun. (Yes, I know -ane is not the same as -ene; still, my mind hears cyclohex- and goes Nope!)