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

[rylangrayston]

I was just looking thru the supper high quality photos linked to above( very nice!)
Because the resolution is so high I was able to catch a possible problem. It looks like there is a fairly large ( as in 3mm) bit of thread coming of the knot of the galvo tie point closest to the laser.... you know after you tie the thread onto the galvos and then snip off the excess ... I think it should be snipped off a little closer to the knot. If that little bit of thread coming of the knot bumps into anything it will thro the galvo off.

also noticed that you have a 2 litre bottle for your top reservoir ... I have found that they can implode under the pressure of the dripper hose during a print. If this happens the drip speed will suddenly rise. You may want to re enforce the 2 litre bottle.

Looking great, Hope that saves you a bit of trouble shooting.

[Builder1]

I'M BACK BABY !!!

Fresh new name, styling' new IP. Encrypted to the core!
Builder1 can't be stopped ;->

In our last episode, Th...er...Builder1 was tinkering with calibration but had a thread stuck on the mirror of the vertical armature. This was warping one side of the square pattern and somehow getting infront of the laser causing a chunk to be missing from the square on the right side.

Removing the thread and trimming it down has resolved the missing chunk and improved the general shape of the square.
...but it's not quite right yet...

Here's a new image of the "Print Area" square (there is also a "square" test pattern but it is smaller)
https://s32.postimg.org/cw1j8euut/Not_Quite_Square.jpg

You can see that the left and right sides have a slight bend about the halfway mark.
The top and bottom sides have a pincushion effect where they are arched inward. I believe this is caused by the mirror being slightly curved. This is the vertical axis mirror that had the thread stuck under it. The arch is better now that the thread is gone but it appears the mirror needs some "reforming".

Also, with aligning the vertical armature galvo. In the Peachy_OrientationTest image you can see the galvo is generally at a 45 deg angle to the frame. That is roughly ideal to centre the laser to the print area. Knowing that will make it much easier to quickly get your laser pointing in the right place :-)

I will be using my Lumix camera rather than my phone (4S) as I can get MUCH better pics, especially close up. I will also do some cropping before posting.

I want to get as perfect a print area as possible before I start doing print jobs b/c I want good prints.. Makes sense..no?

I will also be dragging it around to a few demos in the next couple weeks so I would like to have a few nifty prints to show off (uh oh... dedicating myself to a deadline !!!)

More to come...

[rylangrayston]

nice work! the...I mean Builder1... I wouldent worry to much about perfection...
The Peachy Printer software is missing a few calibration features so untill that is done I would say that square is good and certainly good enugh to print
with. Even if you get the square to be perfect you will likely get imperfections in your prints from the drippers inconsistency and the current math in the calibration code.

[curious aardvark]

lol the banning was a mistake. They block banned a LOT of ip addresses.
I emailed brian and got reinstated, seemed simpler than builder's solution :-)

So now you're back - go print something !

No way I'd have been able to spend so much time messing about without at least trying a print :-)

[iDig3Dprinting]

lol the banning was a mistake. They block banned a LOT of ip addresses.
I emailed brian and got reinstated, seemed simpler than builder's solution :-)

Yes, what happened with all the IP banning?

[curious aardvark]

there was LOT of spam last friday.

[Builder1]

Great!! The forum works without vpn now :-)

Your right! Time to stop tinkering.
I am working to tame Cura and finding time to do some prints.

[Builder1]

PRINT SUCCESSFUL !! Sort of...

I have TONS of info and pics to post. It might take a couple days to get it all posted. I'm a bit time squished.
Epic fails, dripper triumps, chemistry curiosities.... It's coming !!

Get the sneak peak here:
http://postimage.org/gallery/1v2m10jn8/

[Builder1]

The full report !!

Calibrating
I performed all of the calibration sequences including using the grid (I made itmyself!!)
Once the Peachy is plugged in, the software allows you to see all of the options. Click on Settings. Now click on Laser Calibration. At the top of the screen is a row of buttons for calibration. Just go through them one by one from left to right.
I’ll do some screen shots of these screens once I get a chance.

Slicing with Cura
-I downloaded Cura(v15.04.6) on my MacBook Pro and read through the instructions for setting it up for the Peachy. This was all very straight forward. I then downloaded the Rook from Thingiverse and sliced it. I saved the .gcode file and looked forward to using it as my first test print.
http://peachyprinter.ipbhost.com/ind...-printer-cura/

Standard Setup
I decided to made a standard Peachy setup for testing (Pop bottles: 1L reservoir, 2Lprint container). My larger setup needs a few more parts as the printer sits VERY precariously on its top (you can see it in the pictures). Not practical at all.

Where’s theSalt
Not using enough salt = EPIC RESIN FAIL!!!
Add LOTS of salt to the water until it starts to collect on the bottom. Use warm water (to help dissolve salt). I’m not sure how the resin behaves with heat. My water was definitely on the warm side but not hot.

@Rylan
Are the resins temperature sensitive?

***Get your salt water ready in advance of starting a print***
If you get all setup and then decide to fill your reservoir, you will find yourself yanking your setup all over the place as everything is interconnected with hoses and dripper wires (drip switch to PCB) and a light/empty print container.
I had a box of table salt that had a metal spout. This really helped to keep the mixing process clean and tidy.
Mix up the saltwater in a container not required by the printer.
Fill the reservoir (leave some space at the top).
Add salt water to the print container up to “start” level (a bit below the printbase).
Once those things are done you can begin doing the rest of the setup. This will save you a lot of aggravation and time ;-)

Adding the Resin
I mixed up some salt water in my reservoir and my print container and added some resin into it. FAIL!!! You can see in the picture that most of it sunk to the bottom. I didn’t know what to think!!! Had the resin gone bad!?! I know these resins have a 6 month self life but I didn’t know how old mine was. I set that one aside by pouring it into an old slurpie cup. I really didn’t know what to do with this stuff. I can’t dump it down the sink or flush it down the toilet!! What do I do with this stuff???? It was late at night and no good idea’s came to me so I just put it aside.

Let’s try this again.
Rylan gave me two partial (roughly 1/8th full) bottles of resin to get started with(THANK YOU!!!). So with my first fail with green, and suspecting it might be “bad”, I grabbed the red resin and tried again. Same result!!! Crap! What going on!?! I went back to the green cup and dumped A LOT more salt into it and stirred it up with a wood skewer stick (Very useful tool with the Peachy!!).
SUCCESS!! I then added more salt to the print container with the red resin. Success again!!
Ok, time to get the rest setup and try printing!!

Dripper Fun
The plastic dripper part only has one “arm” that holds it to the print container. This causes it to tip to the side a lot. The weight of the hoses pulls on it too. Using the dripper when it’s at an angle will cause missed/unsensed drips because the drop falls too far to the side and does not touch the bottom wire.
I found a great and simple solution that decisively solved the problem.
I wedged the drip tube in front of the print base (you can see it in the pictures).That tube has no chance of moving anywhere now!! Worked like a charm!!

Printing
I was looking forward to printing that Rook! Print tests be Damned!!!
I pointed the Peachy software at the Rook’s .gcode file I made with Cura but there wasan error! I can’t remember what the message was but it wasn’t helpful for me to troubleshoot. I tried again with the same result. I have no idea why the software did not like my file and I did not have the patience to slice it again.
So I decided to print an item from the bundled “Library” of objects in the Peachy software. These are test files that are already in gcode format so setting up the software for a test print is quick and easy. (Why do I always miss the “quick and easy” ?!?)
Choosing the test file opened a Print Settings window. I made a couple changes to the defaults. I increased the speed from 80mm/s to 120mm/s. I thought, since there were no corners, I could speed up the laser without degrading the shape of the print. Seamed reasonable.
Next I changed the height of the print job. This was an accident. I misinterpreted this value to be the height of the print container. I t was actually for the height of the print! I had measured the container from the start level to the top to be 14 cm so I entered 140mm in as the value. Calk that one up to a late night. I “should” have put 20 or 30mm so that I could get a small and quick test print.


The Blob
In my first attempt I had set the water level too high and the print did not attach to the base. So as the resin level rose, the laser just kept drawing on a floating blob of cured resin.
I used my handy skewer stick to push the blob over to the side (without knocking my galvos out of alignment) and started a second attempt.
For the second print, I set the print base slightly above the resin so that it was not touching the resin. I started the print then got the dripper started.
Rylan shared with me on my visit that the drip speed should be about 6 drips per second (there is a drip counter in the software. See software pics). When I started the dripper (reservoir full) it was running at about 9 drips per second. To slow this down I would need to sit the reservoir lower. I didn’t have another box or other “thing” to sit it onthat would work so I just let it go.


Curing
-Hmmmm… Sudden realization. I don’t have a UV light source. There wasn’t much I could do about that in a pinch so I put everything aside. In the morning I put it all outside in the sun. Plenty of curing time while I’m getting ready for work (about 45min).

@Rylan
How long does curing really need?

Cleaning up
-Getting the unused resin back in the container was interesting. Pouring it back only worked for about half of the resin. When the resin is thin enough, the salt water goes under the resin and pours in the container.
Solution: (wish Ithought if it that night ;-)
***Use the cut off top of the 2L bottle with the cap on. Poke a small hole in the cap and use it as a funnel (I didn’t want to ruin my kitchen funnels). Pour the print container contents into the funnel with the hole plugged. Let the water/resin resettle to separate layers then open the hole and pour off the water. Once it’s down to the resin, just pour that into the resin container.***

The Print
The print job has a definitive odor. Strangely, it smells more that the entire bottle of resin. Even after several days, it still feels wet the touch and has an odor. It's not too intense but easily noticeable. I even tried putting it on the dash of my car over my lunch hour. 4 days later I can still faintly smell it in my car and it didn’t even make a difference!

@Rylan
Any thoughts on thesmell and wet surface!?!

The print is hard but flexible. It flexes when squishing it and bounces back when I let go. Kind of like squeezing a plastic pop bottle.

Summary of PrintQuality Fails
-Set the height ofthe print waaaaay too high in the print settings
___-Stretched the print, took too long.

-Set the laser speedtoo fast
___-The print was not cured enough to stand up on it’s own.
___-It fell over while the water was being drained

-Drips were too fastat the start (started at over 9 and ended at less than 4)
___-Stretched the print (possibly made the top a bit heavier than the bottom)

-Bubbling and imperfections on surface
___-Not sure. Maybe something with how I mixed the salt water or how I poured them together???
___-I added salt after the resin was in the container then stirred the hell out of it. Bubbles could be caused by trapped air (er...bubbles I guess) and/or possibly undissolved salt particles.

-Print Leaning forward
___-I think my vertical galvo was sliding slightly. This made the top part that broke off have a rippled surface. Other parts were straightup and quite smooth. I’m gluing that *@%$er.

-Improper curing after finish
___-Time to buy a UVlamp ;-)

[rylangrayston]

how dose temperature affect resin?
We have not tested this so I dont know, but if I had to guess I would say it lowers the viscosity and makes it more sensitive
Both of which would be good for printing faster.

"I wedged the drip tube in front of the print base (you can see it in the pictures).That tube has no chance of moving anywhere now!! Worked like a charm!!"
nice! I hadent though to that ... thats perfect solution since it cost nothing more and the stuff to do is already in your kit.. and as simple as it seems that was actually a really annoying thing about the dripper.

How long dose it take to cure resin in the sun?
First of all I should warn against doing this with to much uncured resin, and always do this out side as the resin can get hot and start steaming fumes.
having said that for most shell prints I leave them out for around 30 min which is probably way to long, resin cures in the sun in less that a second.
next I wash them off with warm soapy water

"Solution: (wish Ithought if it that night ;-)
***Use the cut off top of the 2L bottle with the cap on. Poke a small hole in the cap and use it as a funnel (I didn’t want to ruin my kitchen funnels). Pour the print container contents into the funnel with the hole plugged. Let the water/resin resettle to separate layers then open the hole and pour off the water. Once it’s down to the resin, just pour that into the resin container.***"

wow so simple .. I hadent though of this ether! This makes me want to just have a wiki version of the Instructions.

Thoughs on the smell of a print and the wet surface.
I dont know why the surface stays so wet, perhaps the oxygen in the air is preventing the resin from curing even in the sun or perhaps there is some liquid that dose not actually crystallize during curing. Ether way washing off the print with warm soapy water takes it off so dose rubbing alcohol. Washing will help with the smell alot. painting also reduces the smell.

A Few more thoughts for you.

-The firmware will cap out at 10 dripps per second ... so even if you get your dripper to do 15 drips per second it will only send 10.

-After making an adjustment to the drip speed it will take a few seconds to settle at the new speed however if the speed changes slowly over say 10 min
this is a sign that air is leaking into the bottle at one of the 4 hose ports in the pop bottle lid. A quick way to fix this is to drip so water on the pop bottle lid.
and a more long term solution is to make something to support the hoses.

- Dripping fast can cause the surface of a print to look ruff, because the resin dose not have time to flow over the print wall for each layer.

Awesome and informative post with 2 great solutions. Thanks for making the peachy Printer even better than it was when you got it Builder1!