Delivery No.1 - Build blog of the first V1.0 Peachy Printer in the Wild

[Builder1]

I really like to top two.
I think the planetary gear pump would work the best but the second link that is multi part might be easier to print.
I wil need a much wider print container to have any hope of printing the planetary gear pump.
I will find/make one as soon as I can.

[Builder1]

OK. Found a stew pot at the local thrift store ($4).
It has a surface area 5.81 TIMES larger than the pop bottle. That should make a difference !!
I also found a 8.5x11 glass sheet at the Dollar store for ($1.50). It was in a Certificate frame.
That will hold the Peachy perfectly without having to hack together some weird mounting bracket.

Now for calibration and print tests (on glow paper)

[CescoAiel]

The challenges I see with the olanetary gear model:
Tolerances: too little and it'll fuse together and won't move, too much and it'll skip
Tube insertion: I imagine inserting a tube into that will be much harder than in a modular pump...
Gear reduction: you'll need to adjust for the fact that you'll need more rotations from the driving axle for the planetary gears to complete a full rotation

[Builder1]

I did the dripper calibration and a few print tests with glow paper.
The dripper calibration numbers just didn't seem to add up so I took the "drips per ml" number from the pop bottle and multiplied by 5.8.

I've tested prints with 10% fill and 20% fill. You can see pics of the setup and tests here:
https://postimg.org/gallery/1v695sod0/

There were no Skipped layers on the test with 20% fill while dripping at about 7 drips/s.
This is good!! At this rate there is room for more complex prints and we have lots of room to reduce the drip rate.

The laser was set to 80mm/s which is a max setting for using the FTD resin.
The MakerJuice resin cures even faster which will allow 100-120mm/s which will allow even more to be printed per layer without Skipping layers.

Cura
Cura continues to annoy me.
It will not print horizontal surfaces (due to the layer being too thin, I believe) and thus it must be tilted 15 degrees. Once tilted, the "surface" is just a collection of hundreds/thousands of edges. These surfaces actually turn out quite nice (see the bottom of Rook 1).
The problem really comes in with parts of the print job that are NOT connected to anything else. These parts will float on top of the resin until something that's already anchored connects to them. When testing the Planetary Gear Pump, this becomes a huge problem as all of the gears are not connected to anything. The only way to make this print properly is to archor it to the mesh on the flat horizontal NOT at 15 degrees. If it's tilted, NONE of the gears will touch the mesh and end up getting floated right out of the print!. As for rafting, I have been experimenting with Cura's rafting quite a bit lately. It is only viewable in the "Layers" view, which is why I could not see it before. I have yet to find a satisfactory configuration for rafting in Cura. I will keep experimenting. I will probably check out Craftware and other slicers too.

Anyone have some good suggestions??

[dezi]

Mhm probably because the model was for fdm printers it is expected, that it will connect at some small parts wich will break of easily.
Maybe add some really thin supports to the gears in Meshmixer or something like that? So you can break them off without a problem but will have it connected to the main body?

[CescoAiel]

I'd probably try adding an extremely thin (0.1mm) raster/mesh to the bottom before tilting, so everything is connected to eachother (so they can't float) with a flimsy support that can be easily broken once done...

[Builder1]

Yes, just about every slicer out their is made for an FDM printer unfortunately. Thankfully, they provide extensive options to change how the software works with the printer.
Which bring me to today's topic...

Slicer Hell
Over the last week (..and months), I have been testing numerous configurations in many slicers to see what can be done with the Peachy.
Specifically; , Cura 15.04.6, Cura 2.3 and Craftware

As far as slicers go, theses are the "features" that are needed for the Peachy:
-Customizable & Minimal Rafting
-0.02mm Layer Resolution
-Top & Bottom Surface Printing

So how do the contenders stack up?

Cura 15.04.6
Rafting: FAIL -while rafting can be turned on, ONLY the first layer's fill can be modified. All other rafting layers are FULL fill.
Layer Resolution: Workaround - It does not support 0.02mm layers but 10X Scaling is an acceptable work-around
Output Reliability: Awesome - Very reliable gcode from what I can tell. No problems. Just be sure to delete the "Start" and "End" gcode settings first (all FDM specific)
Surface Printing: FAIL - I still don't know the root cause of this. Even set to 0.2 (standard FDM setting) it still doesn't print surfaces until tilted
Community Intention: FAIL - Yes, Cura is Free but Ultimaker sells printers too. They have a vested interest in supporting THEIR printers. See Cura 2.3 for more.
Other Items: ??

Cura 2.3
Rafting: AWESOME - Custom rafting is much easier. Cura 2.3 adds the option to specify how many FIRST layers you want along with it's Fill percentage. Score !!
Layer Resolution: Workaround - It does not support 0.02mm layers but 10X Scaling is an acceptable work-around
Output Reliability: FAIL - Printing with Cura 2.3 gcode files just prints gibberish ! You will not recognize your model. Not sure why yet. Maybe it does not support RepRap Gcode??
Surface Printing: UNKNOWN - Output was giberish.
Community Intention: FAIL - Yes, Cura is Free but some change prevents Cura 2.3 gcode from printing coherently on the Peachy.
Other Items: The UI is vastly improved !! In the preferences, you can TURN OFF settings that you don't want to see in the main UI !!! This allows a customized "Peachy" settings UI. Slicing is a bit faster and drawing the Tool visualization is like lighting now !!! Still tries to melt down my Macbook Pro during slicing.

Craftware
Rafting: AWESOME - Every layer is fully customizable. It is a bit tedious to add each line one at a time but it's only done once.
Layer Resolution: Workaround - It does not support 0.02mm layers but 10X Scaling is an acceptable work-around
Output Reliability: FAIL - Output was giberish. It slowly moves the laser off of the print area and then twitches every once in awhile.
Surface Printing: UNKNOWN - Output was giberish.
Community Intention: Yes, Craftware is Free but CraftUnique makes their own printer "Craftbot". They claim that Craftware works with RepRap printers so long as they support "standard" gcode.
Other Items: UI is weird and messy. Takes some getting used to but it is functional. WICKED fast slicer !!! Easily 10-30x faster than Cura 2.3 !!! Adds alsorts of weird domes and fat tubes to the layers visualization. There is a legend that says what they are but it obscures the model. Displayes teh gcode on the layer visualization screen !! That's cool ! It points to the exact line of gcode that is being drawn as you go through the layers with a set of sliders.

Slic3r
Rafting: AWESOME - Easy to customize and set fill percentage
Layer Resolution: Workaround - It does not support 0.02mm layers but 10X Scaling is an acceptable work-around
Output Reliability: Awesome - Very reliable gcode from what I can tell. No problems. Just be sure to delete the "Start" and "End" gcode settings first (all FDM specific)
Surface Printing: Awesome - No problems
Community Intention: Awesome - Slic3r is a Free and Open source community project. They do not sell a competing product so their intent of producing a slicer for the 3D Printing community will not be derailed due to competition.
Other Items: The only problem with Slic3r is that it can't manage large print volumes. This means, no 0.02mm layers and no 10x scaling. This essentially makes it unusable with the Peachy. However, they are fully aware of the issue and are in the works to providing a fix (well, a significant code rewrite for parts of Slic3r). This may take awhile but once they are done, there will be a fabulous free and open source slicer for the Peachy !


So basically, we have Cura 15.04.6.
I will see if there is a way to get Cura 2.3 (that would be soooo awesome!) or Craftware to work with the Peachy.
Peachy Specific
What if we had features just for the Peachy? What would they be?

Horizontal Supports - Because the Peachy can do full 90 degree over hangs, vertical supports are not required. However, when a part "dips" into a new layer but isn't connected to anything, it will "float" up to whatever layer does connect to something else. To fix this reliably, a HORIZONTAL Support would be perfect. Only a thin horizontal anchor would be needed.

That's all I can think of for now.
Need cookie

[amoose136]

Builder1, could you post some good up close images of the galvos? (multiple viewpoints, good lighting, etc) I haven't given up on magnetic damping yet but it's been difficult to replicate what was done with the peachy printer. BTW you should be able to use the forum's internal picture uploading now if you want.

[amoose136]

Check out using Autodesk Meshmixer for support generation and then slice with anything with supports turned off. Meshmixer can let you do tree like supports that might work better than the kind offered by standard slicer software designed for FDM.
2013-12-28_21-36-44.jpg

[Builder1]

I will take some detailed pics as soon as I can but it will be a few days (out of town :-(
Meshmixer sounds interesting. Craftware can also place supports in user defined locations (haven't played with it but know it can do it).
Honestly, I'm not excited about Autocad products as you have to sign away your life to get it installed... but I may try it some time in the future. Too many things in the cue currently ;-)

BREAK THROUGH !!!
I think I have figured out how to get Cura 2.3 to work with the Peachy !! There is a setting in the “Machine Settings” called “Machine Centre is Zero”. This sets the origin to the centre of the build plate rather than the Cura 2.3 default of top left corner. I looked at the gcode output from 2.3 and NONE of the values are negative (thus working in only ONE cartesian coordinate quadrant).
I'm hoping to do an actual test in a couple days when I'm back in front of my printer.