Sore fingers, amazement, frustrations and hair spray: First days with my Creator Pro

[curious aardvark]

well the 3dp bed coating was a definite windup.
I'm wondering just how many people came away from the show and wiped their build plate down with beer !
Yeah i know, but they were very persuasive and it was a cohesive effort across the whole team.

I tried it twice - so they definitely got me :-)

My biggest problem with blue tape and pla is getting LESS stick !
Think I might be getting there. I've de-calibrated slightly and lowered the pla temp to the point where any lower and it won't stick at all.


For designing I love openscad. I can't draw, never could, never will.
But I do have very good visualisation and 3d perception. So I know what i want and where I want it and openscad lets me just tell it what I want and where to put it.

It can look a little disconcerting at first. But once you realise the syntax is the same no matter what - you just get used to sticking in the brackets and the rest is basic arithmetic.

You can make something simple like an open topped box with three lines of basic code. Takes about 30 seconds. try that in a gui cad package.

The more you use it, the easier it is to do complicated things. Some of the most complex models on thingiverse are done in openscad.

[Geoff]

well the 3dp bed coating was a definite windup.
I'm wondering just how many people came away from the show and wiped their build plate down with beer !
Yeah i know, but they were very persuasive and it was a cohesive effort across the whole team.

I tried it twice - so they definitely got me :-)

My biggest problem with blue tape and pla is getting LESS stick !
Think I might be getting there. I've de-calibrated slightly and lowered the pla temp to the point where any lower and it won't stick at all.


For designing I love openscad. I can't draw, never could, never will.
But I do have very good visualisation and 3d perception. So I know what i want and where I want it and openscad lets me just tell it what I want and where to put it.

It can look a little disconcerting at first. But once you realise the syntax is the same no matter what - you just get used to sticking in the brackets and the rest is basic arithmetic.

You can make something simple like an open topped box with three lines of basic code. Takes about 30 seconds. try that in a gui cad package.

The more you use it, the easier it is to do complicated things. Some of the most complex models on thingiverse are done in openscad.

Openscad still escapes me lol sorry, even thou by nature I am an old school programmer, when it comes to modelling I find it very hard to go from a visual design perspective to a mathematical one. After 5 years of blender, I know all my metrics, I know which machines and what software screws up those metrics (like makerware reduces ALL models by 0.8% scale when printing. keep that in mind) so I sort have been sticking with Blender and RepG/makerware/pronterface

For PLA not to stick, that's wierd, how hot is your bed? i'd even try turning it off completely.

[Roxy]

For designing I love openscad. I can't draw, never could, never will.
...
The more you use it, the easier it is to do complicated things. Some of the most complex models on thingiverse are done in openscad.

OpenScad Rocks! (But somebody needs to fix the render engine. The stupid thing takes forever to do its thing.)

[Serena]

For designing I love openscad. I can't draw, never could, never will.
But I do have very good visualisation and 3d perception. So I know what i want and where I want it and openscad lets me just tell it what I want and where to put it.

I think the two of us put together would be the perfect designer. I love to draw and am very visual. I resent anything that makes me do math. In terms of working with software-If I can't see it than it doesn't exist.

Openscad still escapes me lol sorry, even thou by nature I am an old school programmer, when it comes to modelling I find it very hard to go from a visual design perspective to a mathematical one. After 5 years of blender, I know all my metrics, I know which machines and what software screws up those metrics (like makerware reduces ALL models by 0.8% scale when printing. keep that in mind) so I sort have been sticking with Blender and RepG/makerware/pronterface

For PLA not to stick, that's wierd, how hot is your bed? i'd even try turning it off completely.

OpenScad Rocks! (But somebody needs to fix the render engine. The stupid thing takes forever to do its thing.)

It's always interesting to me how differently people go about similar tasks. The beauty is there is so many software options out there everyone can find something that works for them. The down side to that is when you are new to it all, the researching and finding what you like is so overwhelming. Too many choices! Geoff sounds like you and I think much the same on modeling. I definitely like to find what works and gives me the visuals I want and then stick to it. I just hate my choppy workflow at the moment. But it will come in time... What I've learned so far is that half the battle is knowing the questions to ask (Or google). When I say "texture" i think of surface changes- physical highs and lows on the surface. I'm learning that in 3d modeling texture means an applied material that simulates the look of texture but doesn't effect the actual geometry in any way. I spent many hours learning some great techniques that will only show up on 3d renders but would be non existent in printing. (This may be majorly stating the obvious to you guys- but it's something that was so hard for me to find explained anywhere!) Sigh....So today my project is learning displacement maps on Blender. Since that seems to be the only way I've found to get what I'm looking for. If anyone has any insight on that I would be most grateful.

Also, on to actual printing-so I had this strange result. Wondered if anyone can tell me what the heck happened with this print:
Photo Oct 07, 9 10 44 AM.jpg

It's an ampersand that I did with no infill, 0.1mm height and 2 shells. My first time using no infill-Is that why the top layer turned out like this? When I look at the slicing it looks solid.