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

[Geoff]

I'll have to try that next time. I tend to print stuff all over the plate, moving from one corner to the other, to maximize the printing I can do before I have to wash it off and re-apply the glue stick. However, you are right, it might be easier to just do partial coverage.

Cheers,

John

It was so painful for me replacing that whole sheet, I did it once a month or couple of months for 2 years..argh... and my wife lol, I used to get her to hold the roll tight while I laid it on the bed...(err that didn't come out right...)

anyway.... when I got into PLA more and wood etc I started using Blue tape...

Then I got lazy and when I put kapton back on... when i switched to blue tape once more, I left the kapton on, and put the blue tape over the kapton... Now this did 2 interesting things.. It gave me an extra insulation layer and the parts curl up even less more as they have a buffer between the heatbed now, the blue tape holds heat in too. And the second, was my prints are now 0.0.. whatever milimeters closer to the plate because of the double layer... so printing raftless WITH supports is now a breeze. I used to need a raft for the supports because they wouldnt stick to the bed well, but now thats not a problem.

I'll be honest, I use that combination now for ABS and PLA now for everything, if it's ABS I use the kids glue stick on the blue tape, and PLA just plain on the bed, no additional crap. I don't know if the 3M 3" Blue tape im using is anything special it's the only one I've really tried so far.

[jdg56]

My local Lowe's has a few 'improved' types of 3M blue tape which are useless in the printer. I'm stocking up on the 'regular' tape so when they eventually [tinfoil_hat] cave in to the anti-3d-printing corporate manufacturist cartel and [/tinfoil_hat] stop making the 'good' stuff, I'll be able to carry on whilst we wait for quantum bed adhesion.

They don't seem to carry the 3" width, which is how I started experimenting with the 'new' versions.

My current addition to the gnome army (my office at work is a total playland of Things) is separating from the kapton tape in the freezer, but I'll definitely give the kapton+3M tape a try tomorrow.. This kapton is a bit scuffed. Will that affect using it along side blue tape, or can I experiment without having to replace it?

Cheers,

John

[curious aardvark]

One thing I will say with tape of any kind.
Buy narrower rolls and use more strips.

I've got a20cm wide roll of kapton and it's just totally unmanageable.
The best use I've had out of it so far is to cut thin bits to attach my level aluminium plate to the original unlevel flashforge plate.

I did try using it to cover a glass plate and it's just too bloody wide.
Thought I was being clever buying a width that would do the plate in one go. Nope, definitely not clever :-)

[Stigern]

One thing I will say with tape of any kind.
Buy narrower rolls and use more strips.

I've got a20cm wide roll of kapton and it's just totally unmanageable.
The best use I've had out of it so far is to cut thin bits to attach my level aluminium plate to the original unlevel flashforge plate.

I did try using it to cover a glass plate and it's just too bloody wide.
Thought I was being clever buying a width that would do the plate in one go. Nope, definitely not clever :-)

Damn, just bought a 23cm wide one XD

[curious aardvark]

the problem is that the kapton tape is super sticky and seems to stick to itself in preference to anything else.
So just pulling a strip off a roll that wide, stretches it and deforms it. Then while you're trying to get it to stick to something else - it's doing it's best to stick to itself, crease, tear and fold.

I'm contemplating knocking up some kind of jig so i can cut the roll evenly into thinner strips.

***

Back to the bracelet - printed the normal size one (previous were short ones) with my adjusted catch. Now I don't know if this was related to the printer or simplify3d. But there are a couple of dodgy areas where filaments blobbed and some links that are fused. This is the first bracelet I've printed with simplify3d and the first issues of any kind I've had with any pla print.

That said the rest of the bracelet is fine and the catch looks better and is just as easy to use. And it did slice in a couple of minutes rather than a number of hours.
One thing with s3d - I can look at the gcode it generate alongside the x3g file to see if I didn't set the layer height to 0.27.

Short while later...

primaryExtruder,1
; layerHeight,0.2
; topSolidLayers,3
; bottomSolidLayers,3
; perimeterOutlines,2

Yeah my fault. Should have been 2 layers all round and 0.27 layer height.
So considering that - it probably shouldn't have printed as well as it did :-)

[Serena]

Update on my progress- Finally got to print the first thing that I designed myself- yay! Here it is. It's for my daughter... I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I just need to play with the quality and see if I can get a little faster print without sacrificing too much smoothness. This took about 8 hours to print on 0.1 layer height.

Photo Oct 09, 10 31 24 AM.jpg



All though I'm starting to feel a little limited by the size of the print bed. Have any of you done many prints where you attached pieces together to make a larger item? How did they turn out? What did you use to attach them? I am going to try experimenting with some various glues I guess... but it seems like most things roll off the abs without sticking really good.

[Teledog]

..as to the Kapton tape..the huge wide rolls seem thinner & more prone to damage than the ~1/2" rolls for some reason.
Found an interesting method to dealing with the huge rolls on another forum. (need 3 pieces of ~1/2"dowel, ~12" long)
If one can eventually manage to unroll an inch or 3 off the roll ..intact (I stick it to the kitchen counter),
One sticks a dowel (~1/2 " or whatever diameter, aluminum or wood or..) - a few inches longer than the roll - under the leading edge and roll it up a bit.
The rolled dowel should be pretty much parallel with the main roll,..now carefully draw out the length you need for the bed and a few more inches, then put another dowel underneath the tape - about 1-2" out from roll of Kapton, making sure it's "stuck well".
Add a third dowel, stuck right next to the roll,..to pull the kapton off next time you need it (trust me, it works.. and saves you a lot of frustration)
Cut the kapton between the two dowels that are next to the roll (probably need a second person to help!)
Now you should have two dowels/sticks with a sheet of kapton in between. (good for capturing bugs or..)
"I" heat the bed to ~50/60C- with the bed as low as it will go & carefully lay the Kapton on from one side to the other.
Lay it on & "squeegee" it with a piece of soft plastic or whatever..there may be bubbles, but they seem to work their way out after a few prints.
Only tried the water thing once,..it sucked..it's OK for vinyl applications/windows, but not a heated bed IMHO

As to sticking on Kapton, I always use the ABS glue (with MEK) and wipe it with MEK between prints.
Let the bed cool, drizzle on IPA, wait 30 seconds & bop the prints off with a maple stick & rubber hammer.

My 2 cents anyway..

[Serena]

the problem is that the kapton tape is super sticky and seems to stick to itself in preference to anything else.
So just pulling a strip off a roll that wide, stretches it and deforms it. Then while you're trying to get it to stick to something else - it's doing it's best to stick to itself, crease, tear and fold.

I'm contemplating knocking up some kind of jig so i can cut the roll evenly into thinner strips.

***

Back to the bracelet - printed the normal size one (previous were short ones) with my adjusted catch. Now I don't know if this was related to the printer or simplify3d. But there are a couple of dodgy areas where filaments blobbed and some links that are fused. This is the first bracelet I've printed with simplify3d and the first issues of any kind I've had with any pla print.

That said the rest of the bracelet is fine and the catch looks better and is just as easy to use. And it did slice in a couple of minutes rather than a number of hours.
One thing with s3d - I can look at the gcode it generate alongside the x3g file to see if I didn't set the layer height to 0.27.

Short while later...



Yeah my fault. Should have been 2 layers all round and 0.27 layer height.
So considering that - it probably shouldn't have printed as well as it did :-)

Yeah thats great it turned out, considering.... I may try that bigger one too. I could get the small one on, but it pinched pretty bad. Is PLA like ABS in that the manufacturer makes a difference in the quality? is there one you recommend? I'd like to get some to try.

[Geoff]

Yeah thats great it turned out, considering.... I may try that bigger one too. I could get the small one on, but it pinched pretty bad. Is PLA like ABS in that the manufacturer makes a difference in the quality? is there one you recommend? I'd like to get some to try.

PLA and ABS completely different to work with Serena, but I have to say I really do like the look of printed PLA, it's shiny and looks sleek. It really is worth just getting a roll and trying it, get a nice bright colour.

ABS gives you more headaches with things lifting off the heatbed whereas PLA gives you headaches with the printing temperature.. too hot and the top layer raises up alot as it prints and get's messy, but over all I have to say for someone who was a total ABS fanatic, I really am finding myself loving PLA more. It is also very malleable, if you put PLA in hot water, it can be maniuplated into other shapes.

The way I look at it now, if it is a functional part, like a Gear, or print head or something that needs to be durable, I print in ABS, if it is an arty thing, busts, sculptures, toys etc, or very very large prints, I go with PLA just because it's easier to work with.

[curious aardvark]

as far as quality goes - that chloe print would look just as good printed at 0.3 layer and 10 % infill.
Which would be MUCH faster :-)

Also if you rounded off the top - rather than keep it flat you could print it hollow. Much much quicker and way less plastic and it would look better and feel nicer.
I'm impressed you got that much abs to print without warping.

the slightly longer bracelet is better. And with the reduced size catch looks sleeker as well. I'll upload the stl when i get the chance.

But if you wnat to render the openscad file yourself here's the .scad file: chainmail_bracelet_v4-reducedclasp.scad

Just load into openscad. Press the f6 key
wait about an hour till the picture of the bracelet shows up. Then click 'file' and export to .stl
Print :-)
My only real issue with openscad is the time it takes to render the more complicated files.

@geoff - for gears pla is better because it's harder and less prone to wear. Not so good if they get real hot - but apprently for wearing it's a lot better.

So are you selling just the plastic parts or complete kossel kits ?
I thinm we're nearly at the point where I want to try building one from scratch. Just ordering the right bits thats the issue as I have no idea which bits works best and are cheapest :-)

MY mate can do any soldering and understands electrickery, And I can make the bits and scrounge the aluminium (hopefully)
We've got to redesign the control and arm rest setup for a friend of mine's electric wheelchair first - but after that I reckon we could try for a delta :-)