Real World 3D Printer Comparison

Well this idea started out in another thread and I want to thank Roberts_Clif for this idea. So basically I made a comment about 32 bit boards being better and this person challenged me with printing something out in a given time. He posted up a .stl file and some settings and then I tried to print the same with my printer. In this forum where there are so many threads asking which is better and everybody posting up there ideas and opinions here is a chance to generate some real world results and comparisons. So Roberts_Clif can print this part in 1hr 38 min on his 8 bit board. After my comment based on the given understanding about the 32 bit boards and their advantages when I tried I was able to print at 1hr and 51min. From here I have gone further and re printed the same part raising the print speed to 120 and then 130% and I got close to this person's time.. https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/923/Vu1gqZ.jpg Just a minute over his time but there are imperfections starting to show.. https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/922/9ULXgd.jpg https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/922/2MZXQk.jpg This challenge has revealed truth beyond ideas and opinions. Namely that Roberts_Clif was right and an 8 bit board can drive a printer at good speeds. It let me know that at higher print speeds I need to up my extrusion multiplier or e steps. And it is also a great way for us to compare our different printers. Is a Creality better than a Hictop or a TronXY? Well let's answer some of those questions. Post up a stl file and how long it took you to print it with what specs and on what printer and lets see who can generate the better results. And show us some high quality pictures of how the print came out. Not as a race to a finish line but to identify issues and dig our ways through tuning our stuff to as close to perfection as we can get them on our way to finding out who is really making the better product.

This is a good thread, wish I would have thought of it.

I have two 3D Printers "Red is a 12V Hictop 3DP11 " "Blu is a 24V Hictop 3DP12" the Printing is quite similar on Both 3D Printers.
My 12V 3D Printer can print ABS however it takes longer to get up to temperatures for printing ABS.

And my 3D Prints are not perfect although I have the benefit of having a 20-20 T-Slot Frame, this is a strong construction.
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On some models where there are mounting holes I get distortion, I just read an article of how to correct this artifacting.
Now I will have to reprint this model to see how well it clears the actual artifacting.
I do not know the time required to print this model with the additional settings enabled.

I do know that the time changes considerable with different slicers and have been playing with Prusaslicer 2.3.0 alpha it has best prints though it also take the longest.

I have sliced the same models with the following slicers
Cura 15.04.6 1 hour 21 minutes
Creality Slicer 1.2.3 1 hour 20 minutes
Cura 3.6.0 1 hour 32 minutes
Cura 4.7.0 1 hour 37 minutes
Prusa 2.3.0 alpha 4 1 hours 57 minutes // Need help getting the Print speed decreased on this slicer please

All in all not to bad for estimated print speeds of course the actual print is a little longer.

So lets have some fun. Go get this: Lattice Cube 3D Printer Torture Test (Overhangs and Dual-Extrusion) by Lazerlord - Thingiverse just the first file on the list is what we should do. Just the basic lattice cube. Print it out as best you can for a base time on a good quality print. I will do the same. Then we can compare settings, time, and print quality. And start chasing each others better specs.

Here is a 1st Print - Have never tried this before and will print again as Cura 3.6.0 did this model no justice.

Layer .24
Print speed variable throughout the Model
No Supports
Photo taken at 2 hours 39 minutes]
Final Time was 2 hours 52 minutes.

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Almost embarrassed to show this Print
Will change slicer an make changes to the slicer profile post again.

3rd Print 2 hours 28 minutes and I found some tricks, believe I can cut this time down to about 2 hours.


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Will Post all Prusaslicer profiles after the Last print.

Now this is more like the model I wanted to Print.
Same settings just on a better Slicer.

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Shaved 7 minutes off the Print2 hours 21 minutes maybe could save another 7 minutes.
I think 2 hours 28 minutes is about the limit.

Show me your Print.

so what do you think was wrong with your first cube ?
Looks pretty clean to me

Also what size did you print it at ?

I'll have go at one of these - but I really HATE printing stuff that has no actual use. After 6 years and 6 printers, I've got more useless bits of plastic around than I know what to do with.

I nominate a 50mm 4 leaf iris box.
Bastards to print and really useful as well as great giveaways that don't use too much plastic.


But I am curious to see what the lattice cube comes out like.

I'll test the delta and the sapphire.
the knp and the mini delta are both pretty slow and the i3 is still awaiting major transplane surgery :-)

They say the camera takes off lbs well the camera took off the rough rough edges.
Though being somewhat of a perfectionist it did have a lot to be desired.. .

I printed it at Scale 100%

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I have the final estimated print time 2 hours 9 minutes

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Will post the final 3MF file for all who have Prusaslicer 2.3.0 alpha 4 to examine.

I find that Prusa slicer has so much to be Thankful for that may never need another slicer again.

Final Print.

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Print Time 2 hours 4 minutes

To give this a better overall look it will require another top layer, this will add 7 minutes to print time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Roberts_Clif

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I just want to apologize for neglecting a thread I started. I am making a mad dash to get my TronXY finished before the Christmas tree goes up. But I can not get over the above picture. It doesn't sit right with me. I make functional parts and so I use 3 perimiters and 3 solid top and bottom layers. The above picture shows the infill and must be 1 or 2 perimiters, no? I think this has greatly hurt my time in our comparison. No worries but to be fair I need to know how many solid layers and perimiters you are getting as they can have a large impact on print time. And I am on CA's side about your prints, bud. The first one looked awesome by my standards. You really have your printers dialed in. I will post up my print times and results on the lattice cube by the weekend.

This has happened from the start, having to decide whether to print the surface layers first or second, how many Perimeters are needed.
Then my computer crashed my configurations needed restored from the beginning, have a backup though forget to update on occasion.
Noted your printed model had artifacting in exactly the same locations, its OK.

Most have a 2 layer surface some have 3 layers as I find it gives a better surface texture this is inclusive of the posted cubes.
The best model was transparent had 3 layers and took 2 hours and 28 minutes, just wanted so bad to get the time down.
You can see the time was estimated to 1 hour 43 minutes though never liked the print at that speed and it also needed a 3rd layer.

So my fastest print was 2 hours 28 minutes printing at a volumetric speed approaching 9.0mm^3 per second
Though with the 3rd layer, the artifacting still occurs on models. No mater what order the Perimeter is printed, could be the Controller.
I printed the Burly below using a Raspberry Pi 3 > Octoprint with Octolapse plugin you will note that the texture on the left vs the Right.
The left was print from Octolapse and right was printed from SD card.
I have always though that this was caused from the controller baud rate of 115200, though never tried to up the baud rate to 250000.
Simply stated the Camera on the Raspberry Pi took up all the time causing the print quality to decrease.

Though it has rough edges the part still working in my MPCNC it took 6 hours to Print this in ABS an it functions does it matter to me. No.
Now If Printing model that needed better quality, one for purchase would use fastest print possible with the best quality and material...

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what actual printspeed are you setting ?

Even at 150mm/s and 0.3 layer I'm looking at 2 hours 8 mins.

I have the printer setup using Marlin system Defaults which are a bit fast.
To explain as sometime you load the file the estimated time is lower or higher.

You are most likely the same place that I am as I have seen 2hours 8 minutes many times before I captured screen at 1 hour 43 minutes.

Here is my File

While 3D Printing this little Cat 3.5H.Gcode with S3D supplied with Ender-3 I noted,
need of some sort of Braces for the Z-Axis towers as I can see them shacking.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Roberts_Clif

...need of some sort of Braces for the Z-Axis towers as I can see them shacking.

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I got you. Careful frame reinforcements are my thing. And my GEEETech i3 Pro B is very close to your hictop. I made these braces that attach the Z motors to the threaded frame rods for Y. This gives excellent support to the structure of the frame. And then I also made pieces to better hold the smooth rods on each end for X and Y and Z and just make sure that these smooth rods are firmly located and not allowed to move or deflect. I made a Thingiverse page just for my i3 rework sharing all my designs here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4216629

Old Blue Printing Lattice Cube - YouTube
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/922/ZtLwtG.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/923/s2Xwbg.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/923/NHerGb.jpg
But no time. I printed this a little while ago as a test print when I was dialing in my 'Old Blue' printer. I need to re print this so I can assess time.

Weeellll, I did print a lattice cube - got it to just under 2 hours.

But the bloody thing is still stuck to the printbed and I didn't get out there over the weekend.
I usually use my print release hammer and a sharp tap releases most things - but with a large base and spindly lattice - that does not work ! Plus I'd forgotten to adjust my z-axis offset after simplify3d threw a wobbly last week.
So yeah, lol


I did it with three perimeters and 0% infill.

I'm interested to have a go on the delta with the 0.5mm nozzle and 2 perimeters.

The ends of the first lot of rods/angledbits/sides - whatever the hell you call them. were curling and catching - so when I left it it was making horrible noises and I was quite surprised to see it actually finished, was expecting a plate of spaghtti :-)

This truly was a fun project.

finally killed my Heat Brake {Throat} and Nozzle after two years of use.
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You can save that. You will need a new ptfe liner. But a torch on each part until it glows will clean them and turn anything inside to ash. I do that to clear plugged nozzles. Just get them hot until they glow and they are as good as new. Every time. I am printing your cat right now. S3D said 1hr 8 minutes. We will see. I am printing it in white so we can compare. Get that printer back together. This thread is just getting warmed up.

It took me 1 hour and 8 minutes to print the cat..
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/922/5TXT3Z.jpg
It came out good. I am happy with it..
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/923/kvidet.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/xq90/923/3xE5mj.jpg

Looking for Help
I am looking for information on the best way to slice and print this model


Thank you

dual extruder with soluble support filament.

Or, one bone at a time !

I like this idea, but feel that we might need a few more parameters specified, otherwise as Autowiz noted, differing perimeter counts, or top and bottoms layers will significantly impact print time. A similar example would be the benchy #speedboatrace. I'd like to see a more useful print though, as benchies aren't very useful.

Iris box is a candidate, but it doesn't have particularly challenging cooling requirements, and is potentially problematic to scale with differing nozzle sizes (May need to scale wall thickness, but not the tolerances).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by curious aardvark

dual extruder with soluble support filament.

Or, one bone at a time !

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Thank you. I sometimes had doubts about my decision to commit to having a soluble support option.:)