Any prints from the Beta team?

[jstrack2]

Congratulations Feign!!!

Here is a picture of the rook by a ruler (in inches) and a new Yoda. The Yoda is hole free!

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I did this by blasting the Yoda with tons and tons of light. This is obviously not ideal. As you can see it caused Yoda to have very clear layers (where the resin broke over). This can be fixed by raising and lowering the resin level each layer (or by just not blasting it with tons of light of course!) Also because there was way too much light some stuff cured that shouldn't have. For example the bottom cured deep below the wire mesh. This causedthe bottom got screwed up when I was trying to remove the mesh. But anyway these problems should all get fixed eventually.

It sucks that you may not have time to print stuff with it for your wedding. When it does come though it should work great!

[Feign]

Wow, it looks at least like there's the option of a trade-off between layer resolution and strength. Though to put it in perspective, that's a better print than most $800 FFF printers would give you at that scale. A while ago, I suggested skipping the wire mesh entirely and having the print start with a large X-pattern that goes beyond the walls of the print reservoir on the first layer to anchor the print directly to the reservoir. You would have to cut the print loose from the walls after draining the fluid out, but it would keep you from having mesh-removal problems like that.

(to note, my Backup Plan B is the MOD-t I pledged for, Backup Plan C is a friend who owns a Makerbot 2X which I've been helping him get running. I don't have a Backup Plan D and that bugs me a little.)

[X-Line]

Wow for a 1.5" print even with the noted over exposure that is pretty sweet looking.

[3dspider]

hmm... a cheap peristaltic pump could be used just to raise/lower the water height between layers to "dip" the print. as long as the other end of the peristaltic pump was not connected to a water tank, you could just use the water in the line for the dipping action, thus removing the chance of altering the "z" height.

[jstrack2]

Feign I think that you could have a 3D printing service be plan D. Though they are very expensive. If you really need something I could print it for you and ship it. I agree that the wire mesh could be improved. At least for the container I used it is hard to get stuff to stick to it, so I am not sure if what you described would work. However perhaps adding a little strip of something that is easier to stick to on the bottom of the container would fix this problem. If you or anyone else has more ideas about improving this I am very curious to hear!

3Dspider I think this will work too. I am about to start working on raising and lowering the height by using a solenoid to push something to displace the resin. I will probably also try using a pump.

[jstrack2]

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Here is a small owl I printed. I had some trouble getting a good photo of it since it is clear, so in real life it looks better. For example you can clearly see the feet on the log in real life, but it isn't so easy by these pictures. Also to save on resin the owl is only 4cm tall and 2cm wide at its widest point, so the details are pretty small.

[User_Defined]

Nice print Jstrack2!

You seem to be the only one printing anything these days! Has there been a slowdown of beta development?

I have some questions:

Are you intentionally making those layers thick to avoid surface tension problems and holes?

Is this a first-shot print (or are there failed owls before this)?

it appears the only thing in the way of amazing prints is the layer height. I can't wait to see more progress!

[jstrack2]

There has been a slowdown in terms of number of beta testers actively working. However there is a lot of progress being made.

This was my first attempt and I just made big changes with my printer so I I could certainly do better with the current setup.

As for the layers they actually aren't thick at all, it just looks that way in the picture. In fact they are only 0.01 mm thick! For some reason though my laser is shaking every few layers, and this is making the end result look rough. I am not sure why this is, but hopefully I will be able to figure out what is causing that real soon. If you look the top of the head you can kind of see how it is smooth. It is actually even much smoother than that. The layers are too small to see in the sense that curves seem totally continuous (in real life, not the picture).

For this print I have a stepper motor dropping a plunger thing to raise the lower the resin between each layer. Therefore the cured resin gets fresh resin with each layer. A problem that I noticed though is that there can be more than 0.01 mm of new resin added (because resin has non zero viscosity) so over many layers parts can start rising out of the resin a bit. I think if I print at say 0.03 mm per layer this problem will go away. Also high frequency vibrations could help. Or of course lower viscosity resin. Plus if the laser is weak so it is only partially curing then you could get smoothness that is far less than 0.01 mm. In fact I don't know if there is any real limit to how smooth it could get (or at least down to the molecular level).

[User_Defined]

sometimes steppers could vibrate a bit from their holding torque, check the motor and its mounts maybe?

or it could just be that the mounting of the laser and printer assembly is not rigid enough?

That is all I can think of without the setup being physically in front of me!

I'm thrilled to hear how progress is being made, and your post has renewed my anticipation in receiving my printer!

keep up the good work!



- UD

[jstrack2]

Great I'm glad to hear it got you excited!

I don't think it is the stepper or a rigidity problem, but I don't know what it is. Some layers the laser moves smooth, some it shakes. Sometimes half way through a layer it is smooth then shakes. It doesn't appear to be caused by a layer being too complex for the speed am moving the mirrors at. I think this because some times a layer will be smooth then basically the exact same layer will have a bunch of shaking. Maybe the PWM I am doing (instead of the normal analog voltages) is causing problems. I don't know. I will just have to debug it with various tests.