The gallery still works for original resolution
https://postimg.org/gallery/1v2m10jn8/ :cool:
The gallery still works for original resolution
https://postimg.org/gallery/1v2m10jn8/ :cool:
I want to do an ACTUAL print soon. I am still making modifications to my 3D model and exploring Slic3r a bit more but once that is done I will be printing it. i don't want to print just anything. I want it to be printing something that has purpose and also has to print accurately enough to be usable. This will be a real world test of the Peachy ! (..even if it is somewhat simple ;-)
trolley tokens are a good test.
Light, useful and quick to design and print.
I make them like rings with a hollow centre.
And if they're not dimensionally accurate - they won't work.
they're my main 3d printed giveaway to people :-)
he's a spammer.
And obviously you make them the correct size for the relevant country. Over here it's £1 coins.
Hey everyone !!
It's been a bit since my last post. I've been kept busy with the usual life things but I have managed to get some time in learning 3D modeling.
I'm using Cheetah 3D v7b16. It's a very competent modeler and also has fantastic animation and rendering capabilities too!
I've been modeling some new and even "replacement' parts for the Peachy. I will have a bevy of pics available once I actually print them...not quite ready yet.
I've been experimenting with rafting options for prints too. With short flat prints, having them attach to the mesh is a problem as your whole print could be destroyed removing it. Using a small raft would give you something that can attach to the mesh and leave your print unharmed.
So far, the rafts appear to be too thick and could be difficult to remove from the mesh.
I will also experiment with adding a vertical plane or two underneath the print by adding it directly to the model before it even gets to the slicer.
This way, there is very little to remove and the print gets supported. Again, I will have pics of everything once I find time to do some prints.
I will likely contact the Slic3r developers and see if this "light rafting" can be added as an option to Slic3r. We will see what happens.
My updates for the next month will likely be sparse but there is always more to come...
I forgot to add this to my last post.
Hackaday has a really great article on "Lessons in Small Scale Manufacturing".
It's a really excellent read (as are the comments!)
Check it out!
http://hackaday.com/2016/08/10/lesso...ll-shop-floor/
Jason
I managed to find some time to do more testing.
As I mentioned, I have been learning 3D modelling while creating a few models to try out on the Peachy. My models are now in a state where I feel it is time to print them.
Being the paranoid (lazy!?!) person I am, I ran the prints through the printer using the glow paper to see how they would print.
My biggest concern is that my models are very short and flat. In other words, several layers have a lot of surface area. Test prints done by Peachy Inc have been “shells”. The Venus de Milo and Yoda models were hollow. They had very tiny surface area per layer and were basically just outlines. My models have surfaces that cover about 20% (educated guess) of the print area that the Peachy can print in. That’s a LOT more drawing per layer than Yoda !!!
Why is this a problem?
It’s a problem because the Z-Axis will raise at a CONSTANT SPEED. If that speed is too fast for the layer to be drawn, the layer will be SKIPPED. An entire surface could be skipped making the real world usefulness of the print….questionable. This was never really a problem for “shells”.
So…todays test was to discover how to get EVERY layer to print.
When printing shells or slightly more surface area dense prints, Rylan recommended 6 drips per second. He has seen good results with this… but will that work for mine?
To do tests without the actual dripper, I have been shorting out the dripper wires with a paperclip. This yields a solid 10.6 drips per second. That’s way to fast to get every layer to print but good enough to see things print (and what I have been doing up until now). With this setup, 50% of the layers are skipped on my models. There just isn’t enough time to print them.
Digging through the settings of the Peachy software I noticed an interesting feature I hadn’t noticed before. In the “Advanced Settings” under “Dripper”, there is an option called “Z-Axis Stuff”. This offers 3 options: 1)Emulated 2)Photo 3)Circuit
Circuit is what you want it set to when doing a real print (it will use the circuit board to count the drips). It’s “Emulated” that perked my curiosity.
When selected, it gives you a “Drip Speed” slider in the print window when printing. The slider lets you select from 0 to 20 drips per second and can be changed while printing!!
Awesome!! This let me continually reduce the speed until the layers stopped being skipped.
Result…
2.25 drips per second until no additional layers were skipped.
Sweet.
I will also have a Super Special Treat to be revealed early this week !!!
Stay Tuned…..
A short update...
First, an apology for teasing with the "Super Special Treat"...
I was interviewed about 3D printing for a podcast at the University I work for. I was "promised" that it would take only a few days for it to be posted and available online for the world to hear. Well, it's been more than a few days and it's still not up pending "approval". I'm not really sure what that means anymore. Oh well... may be some day it will be available. I will post a link when (if?) it is.
I found some time to make some important tweaks to one of my models I've been working on. As I learn how to model, I'm coming to the conclusion that Booleans can be more trouble than their worth. After my tweaks (looks great in the CAD software!), slicer could no longer see significant portions of the model !!! So, I reworked my model taking the boolean operations out and I now have a model that represents what I want AND slices beautifully !!!
I also ordered a UV nail polish dryer. Very small, $15, shipped in 3 days. Sweet. No excuses left.
Next stop: PRINT $#!T !!!
New Print, New Pics
I did a print a couple days ago.
I have posted new pics in a new gallery called “Peachy-Print 2”. Here’s the link
http://postimg.org/gallery/iqedknx0/
Quicker Setup
-Having the Salt premixed in the Drip bottle and a bit more in a second bottle helped make setup much quicker and cleaner. Not a single drop of water got on the table this time! Last time I had a small mess.
Drip system
-Use clips !! I got these white clips at the dollar store. 10 for $1.50. There bigger than I wanted but they are working out really well! MUCH easier to put on and take off than the plastic “O”s.
-I finally got the siphon down pat!! This system really does work fabulously !!
-I used DVD cases as my drip bottle stand. This allowed me to easily increase or decrease the height to get the drip rate I wanted. It worked really well !!
My One Mistake
-Zoom in on pic P1010462.
-I set the mesh to be, not over, not under, but just barley attracting the resin via surface tension. I thought this would be the perfect height. N0pe. The print did not adhere to the mesh and just floated up on the surface. It is VERY hard to see if this is happening until the print is done and your draining the salt water.
-Another oddity, my print is about 4 times smaller than it should have been?!? You can see a test on the glow paper in pic P1010454 showing the start of the print and the three base cylinders. They are almost as wide as the container (about 8cm between the 2 closer cylinders). This is the size it should have printed but you can see in P1010474 that is much smaller. I’m filing that one under “WTF” and will retest everything later (with manually added rafting).
Clean up and odor management
-Washing everything that touched resin with dish detergent, completely eliminated the smell of the resin. Also, I think the green resin has less odor than the red. I could hardly smell it while doing the print! I still had to do a 5 minute airing of my room.
-As an added precaution, I UVed EVERYTHING that touched resin, including the paper towels and my hands (having gloves is HIGHLY recommended). Even after violently scrubbing my hands with soap I still had a significant number of resin speckles all over my hands. Shining the UV light on my hands was like revealing some kind of “resin murder scene” !!! I couldn’t believe how much got on my hands! Curing the speckles with UV hardened them and they easily wiped off. However, I really don’t want to be breathing that in later. Use gloves.
Continuing problems
-The peachy software will NOT print the rafting I’m creating in Slic3r. I discovered by accident that it will print the “Skirt and Brim” (which are completely useless for the Peachy). I NEED RAFTING !!!! I do not want my print to be embedded in the mesh, even a little bit. Why would I want to destroy my print by ripping it out of the mesh !!
-I think the Peachy software is ignoring the rafting gcode. It does ignore the gcode for laser movement speed and for this it makes sense.
-I will do more experimentation with rafting settings and also manually adding thin rafting into my model directly. A thin extruded circle or triangle that touches several places on the bottom of the model will work perfectly and be easy to add. Also, if I make it about 10 layers deep, I can have the resin fully under the mesh and start my print and be confident that my model will adhere to the mesh but not be embedded in it.
The Future
As I stated in my previous posts, MY TIME IS LIMITED. As much as I want to build crazy cool stuff with the Peachy and share my experiences with all of you, it has to fit into my schedule.
“Good news everyone!”
Several personal and work schedule changes are happening right now for me. This should give me time to do prints and experiments at least once a week. I’m excited !!
More to come!
Just did a test on glow paper testing out:
1) Why was it small?
2) Where's my freakin' rafting!
1) As for the size... I still have no clue why this happened. It was "actually" only about 20% smaller than it was suppose to be.
My test on glow paper printed at the exact size it was suppose to be.
2) I decide to generate some new gcode and slic3r crashed on me. I restarted slic3r and reset the print settings (they go back to defaults when you restart the program). That's "print settings" not "Printer settings" just to be clear. I then created my gcode, opened it in the Peachy software and ran the print.
The rafting printed !
My guess is that 3lic3r was misbehaving as I had it open for about a month on my laptop.
Mental note: Restart Slic3r before generation gcode ;-)
more to come...
Gotta remember that you are projecting in a cone, so the higher the resin starts, the higher you are on that cone, and thus the print will be smaller in the X/Y ranges, but not in the Z...
It'll probably be resolved by making sure the software is set correctly for that height, so it can compensate...
I did another print last night and it was another failed print.... but now I know why!!
The resin has gone bad.
As a test, I took my entire print container and shone UV (9Watts) directly in it about 6 inches above the resin.
after about 20 seconds, a thin slime started to form... and that's it. I zapped it several more times but it would not cure anymore.
To remedy this problem I have a bottle of Fun To DO Snow White on its way with overnight shipping !!!
Why the rush? My usual schedule has changed for tomorrow and I will have lots of time to do prints but I need resin to do prints. Tuesday may be the only day I get to use the printer this week so I wanted to be sure I got it on time.
On the plus side:
-the model printed at the correct size
-the rafting printed as it should but I will make the rafting much taller next time.
Before I did my print, I redid all of the printer calibration as well. I think that took care of some of the oddities in print size.
Come on FedEX!! Don't fail me now !!
What kind of resin? Depending on the resin it could either be the polymer itself or simply the photo activator that went bad. If it's the activator you might just be able to find out which activator it uses and add more.
MakerJuice G+
I have very little left anyway. I don't think it's worth saving.
Great idea though. I haven't dug into the chemistry of these resins.
While were talking about resin chemistry; I noticed that the FTD resins are acrylic based.
Is this typical of other resins?
The MakerJuice web site doesn't say say much about their resins, chemically speaking.
Any thoughts?
I contacted a Makerjuice chemist and asked what happens chemically when resin goes bad but all he said was "Typically what you will see is the viscosity slowly increase and/or the resin will become less reactive when it reaches the end of its shelf-life. We normally give our products a 1-year shelf-life, but that's not to say that it could be perfectly fine after 1 year." So I still know nothing about what actually is happening.
I got my FTD Snow White resin last Tuesday and promptly did a print.
The resin was described as "low odor" and it certainly was less scented than either of the Makerjuice resins (I can't be sure what the MJ resins are suppose to smell like when new). It is also thicker than the MJ resins. During the print there was one square in the base where the resin did not want to go through and it just happened to be in the middle of my print. Figures.
This print was not a success HOWEVER, it did cure properly under the UV lamp where the MakerJuice I have wasn't.
All the recalibrations that I did have proved a success! What I did get printed at the correct size. I have an 8.2mm hole in one part of the model and with my caliper, it measured 8mm.
For this resin, I will need to slow the laser draw speed down from 100mm/s to as low as 50mm/s and crank the laser power from 65% to maybe 100%.
I made a new gallery for my FTD prints:
http://postimg.org/gallery/2g96zxbtg/
@Rylan: Did you test FTD resins? If so, what settings did you use?? Where there any other items of interest that you discovered with the FTD resins?
My next steps will be to:
-Try new Speed and Laser settings for the FTD resins
-Use the test models included in the Peachy Software to test the above settings until I get them dialed in
-Buy some new MakerJuice resin too
If anyone has seen any details on the forum of what settings to use for the FTD resins , PLEASE let me know !
J
Quick update...
SUCCESS !!!!
I set the Laser to 100% and the print speed to 80mm/s.
For my test I used on of the models in the Peachy Software "Library" (they are there for testing purposes).
I will post a picture when I get a chance :-)
Ok. I've uploaded the latest pics.
With the laser set to 100%, the print was solid but still slightly rubbery. That actually made it a bit easier to get it off the mesh without totally destroying the bottom of the print. Just a little mangled instead :-)
http://postimg.org/gallery/2g96zxbtg/
Not sure what you mean by "artifacts".
Which picture you referring to? Can you be more specific as to where the artifact is?
I will take better close-up pictures and post them when I can.
Printing G-Code Files
I've been encountering some oddities when I would try to print my own model from g-code.
After a long chat with Rylan last night, I have resolutions to at least 2 of them !!
Oddity #1
Every print from ANY g-code file, the print would not start until the "Current Height" equaled 5. I scoured the settings in Slic3r but could not find a reference to a height of 5. That is until yesterday when I started digging through the g-code itself.
In Slic3r, I found the g-code "beginning" had “G1 Z5 F5000” in it. This translates to Draw straight lines (G1) at the Z-Axis location 5 (Z5) with a Federate of 5000mm/min. So I tried changing Z5 to Z0. This produced NO DRIPS in the Peachy software. It would NOT print. Ok then, I changed Z0 to Z1 and it worked fine and the print started at “Current Height” of “1.0”.
Cool !! That will shave time off my prints :-) Still having a small time buffer allows for final base height adjustments.
In Cura, Rylan recommends deleting the "Begging/End" gcode entirely.
Laser Power
The setting for the laser power would not stay at 1.0 when I set it for my prints. I only had it hold it’s 100% setting with the “library” print.
When I was going into the Advanced Settings, I was setting the value to “1.0”. Last night I tried “0.99” and it is holding the value even after closing and reopening the program !!! That's close enough for me!! Solved !!
Layer Counting & Compressed Layers
Something is still quirky here. I ran the print and the "layer counting" jumped from layer 1 to layer 10. During those layers (maybe a bit longer too), there was no time where the laser stopped drawing between layers. I even had the drip speed set to 3. After around the 15th or 17th layer (not entirely sure), there were laser drawing pauses even though the layers were the same shape/area coverage. Why the change in behaviour??
Rylan and I talked about how we can get some bugs fixed in the software. We will continue that conversation (and I will continue testing!) and see what can be worked out. It will depend on many things including programmer availability but I'm hoping a new release can be brought out sometime in the future. It's all "good intentions" right now but we will see what can be done :-)
More to come...
Last picture, near the top of the indented ellipsoid, there seems to be some irregularities in the print?
I added 2 close ups.
http://postimg.org/gallery/2va5pcaj8/
There are a few "imperfections" in the print and they were all caused by me. The most obvious two are near the top and near the bottom.
During the print, I move the dripper bottle up or down (usually up) to change the drip speed. I have the bottle on a stack of DVD cases and add cases to the stack as the bottle empties. The less water in the bottle and the higher the level in the Build container, the less effective your syphon will be.
I *really* didn't need to move the drip bottle for this print but I couldn't help myself from tinkering ;-)
Moving the dripper bottle makes sense for print jobs that have large surface areas (slow drip required) that change to very small surface areas. With small surface areas, the laser sits around doing nothing waiting for the resin to reach the new layer. The waiting can be a lot more time than the drawing. This is when you want the drip speed to be faster and thus... raise the bottle to a higher position.
I grab the bottle by it's top (don't squeeze it in the centre!), lift gently, slide DVD case under it and slowly place down. This will cause a brief peak in drip speed. Raising it speeds the drip up and placing it down causes it to sink into the DVD case and thus drop down a bit. If you pick it up too high then put it down, you can create a rapid spike in drip speed and if it is near the end of the wait cycle, the resin will break over the already cured print and cause a distortion in the print.
:-)
Hey Builder1
It was great chatting with you on the phone the other day! Just getting caught up on this thread here.
Thankyou so much for posting in detail. There arnt alot of built and working peachy printers out there in the world right now. Your really carrying the torch here! So cool to see that print with the FTD Resin .... We have tested with that resin to and we loved It! We got it to print sooo smooth ... here ill see if I can dig up a pic..
yep here it is:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-a...ew?usp=sharing
Thanks for posting your pics in supper High res! ... your FTD snow white test print looks good but my hunch is that if you turn laser power down just a little bit it will get even smother. It looks like its suffering from break over.
Another resin that I really loved was the Maker Juice resin for the little RP
Pic:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-a...ew?usp=sharing
https://makerjuice.myshopify.com/col...erp-compatible
This print was so smooth I couldn’t even find layers under a microscope!
It takes some experience to get your printer to do this, and from what I can tell your really close!
Since your printing now I think you will find this to be a very interesting read.
http://peachyprinter.ipbhost.com/ind...yers-are-made/
There are lots more articles and info in that form here is the root url http://peachyprinter.ipbhost.com/index.php?/
Looking forward to more posts! Lets chat on the phone again soon. On the plus side with this few people using the peachy printer one on one Tech support with the founder is possible, so call any time Builder1.
It’s BIG PRINT time !!
I spent some time prepping and testing the traditional "test print" Rook file from Thingiverse for printing. I prepared it in Cura according to the recommended Peachy Cura settings with a 2% Fill.
Results !!
Mixed.
Due to difficulties maintaining drip speed, the print looks quite mangled. …but is it?
Ok, yes. It's totally fubared but what's important to know is that it was only few minor settings that made it this way.
This print took over 4 hours and 20 minutes to print. Since it was "averaging" about 1.2 drips per second this isn’t surprising.
Due to slightly weak curing (more below) and drip speed spikes that caused skipped layers (7.8% of all layers were skipped), the print kind of looks like a spring. Also due to this weakness, the rook leaned over while draining the water which caused even more splits.
A bit about Slic3r and Cura
I’ve discovered that Slic3r is only 32bit. This means that prints with very large areas or 10X the Z resolution (..of a typical FDM printer), the data buffers overflow and crash Slic3r. Cura handles this fine, so I’m back to using Cura. The Slic3r team is aware of this issue and is investigating a fix.
Some important Cura settings that are not detailed in the Peachy Cura Setup video are the “Start/End Gcode” settings.
Super simple. Go into the “Start/End Gcode” tab and delete ALL Gcode in the Start and End text areas. NONE of that gcode is applicable to the Peachy and has actually caused me problems. Just get rid of it !
Some Peachy Setting Changes
I changed the laser speed and power to be 100mm/s and 95% power (previous successful print was 80mm/s & 99%) since it was set a bit too high for that print. The Rook was wobbly once the water was drained and since it was printed on a 15 degree slant, it warped slightly from its weight. Using a higher laser speed was essential as I needed each layer to print as fast as possible but I will be raising the power back to 99%.
Propping up the Reservoir Bottle
This was really tricky. Since the drip speed had to be at about ONE drip/s, I had to use very thin books/magazines to prop up the bottle. I started with 2 DVD cases. That set the speed at about 2.5 drips/s which was fine for the start (small surface area). Once the speed dropped down (because the water levels in each container are now different) I added another DVD case. This increased the speed to over 3 and I started getting skipped layers. I removed that case and scoured the house for thinner alternatives. On top of the 2 DVDs, I added 8 CDs, 6 MAKE mags and 4 very thin books equaling 18 increments during the print. Each layer added caused Skipped Layers. If the drip speed required would have been in the 4 to 6 range then it would have been easy to just let the speed drop low then add a new layer that did not put it over the top.
Unfortunately, complex prints take too much time to print each layer and the required drip speed can’t be easily maintained.
Solutions
I see a few ways to SOLVE this issue:
1) Make the print simpler.
In other words, print it smaller and don't use fill. This isn't really a solution but rather just a compensation. I want a way to be able to do BIG complex prints!
2)Abandon the dripper completely.
The Peachy team made a Z-Axis system utilizing a stepper motor for the Peachy and the design files are on the github repo. The Peachy software is also setup and ready for this system.
3)Use a larger build container.
A 2L pop bottle simply can’t be beat for low cost and ease of availability. LOW COST was the primary goal of the Peachy printer and the dripper system allowed that to happen. All things considered, the drip system really is quite slick and does a fabulous job given what it is. Unfortunately pop bottles don’t have a very large surface area. Increasing the surface area would allow for much more resolution with the drip speed and thus significantly reduce or eliminate print problems due to drip speed spikes and “skipped layers”.
I already have a design drafted. 150mm X 150mm X 200mm (5.9”x5.9”x7.9”) with a lid (with glass top) and external drip input and drain output (simplifies cleaning and reduces smell). There are a couple parts for this that I wanted to print. Thankfully they are small and should print beautifully! I consider this a more reasonable build area for 3D printing. It’s on the small side but still small enough to have on your desk and print items of a useful size.
4) Stepper-based Z-Axis **AND** Larger build container !! Why not have it all ;-)
You can see the print here: Rook1 Image Gallery
https://postimg.org/gallery/2bd73bb4k/
What’s Next ?!?
There are a few things I have in the cue:
Create new build container
-Finish 3D modelling some small parts
-Print them
-Laser cut clear acrylic and glass parts
-Design and cut Peachy mounting legs for lid
-Put it all together
-Calibrate new container with Peachy software
Cura
-Explore Rafting in Cura
I also did another rook print and I'll post about it soon.
Images for Rook2 are online :-)
https://postimg.org/gallery/lux3rgno/
More to come...
for the height adjustment something like this could be used
http://www.eyecareandcure.com/ECC-Pr...-Support-Stand
it might even be possible to automate with some gears and a motor
A scissor jack would work great.
However, for the cost of the jack (or less!!!) you could have a stepper motor based Z-Axis system and have all your problems solved.
It's just not worth turbo-charging the dripper system.
couldn't you combine both?
that scissor jack table with a stepper motor instead of manual adjusting the hight?
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1077164
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:925556
I haven't checked what it would cost me to print it, but shouldn't be much more than 10-20€?
I think i will try to build a peachy after i have all my fdm printer working perfectly :)
This would be worth it if you could get the scissor jack for cheap and adjust it manually during the print.
As soon as you start down the road of using a stepper motor (with stepper controller and Arduino), your 70% of the way to a proper motorized Z-Axis and the drip system becomes irrelevant. When I talk about a "proper Z-Axis" system, I'm referring to a system that will move the build plate ONLY once a layer is finished being printed. This is what you want. Now every layer gets printed and your not waiting for the resin level to "catch up" to the next layer.
Just use drip system as power switch maybe? So everytime a drip falls the motor gets power for a extremly low amount of time? Don't know if it could work :D
I have a lot on the go these days so I'll be a bit briefer than usual. Feel free to ask questions !!
All images for this print are already uploaded to the usual place.
I used different settings for this print.
-100mm/s laser speed and 99% laser power
There are still some oddities with this print and they are exclusive to the laser speed being too fast. These settings still do not give enough time for this resin to cure properly. I will need to go back to the 80mm/s speed as that worked very well with the Peachy Test Library print.
You can also see in the software screenshot (Rook2 Results) at the bottom that there were ZERO Skipped Layers.
Most (all?) of the splits in the print were created when the print leaned over when I was draining the water. Getting the print to stand on it's own is really important.
Again, getting good prints comes down to centring the resolution of the printers' functionality. With Rook1, I was operating at the bottom end of the dripper's range. With this print, I'm operating at the top end of the laser's capability to solidly cure the resin while printing at a reasonable speed.
I plan on eventually getting some MakerJuice resin as I believe it's ideal settings are 100mm/s @65% laser power. That gives the opportunity to print at faster speeds if tight corners are not required (over 100mm/s you quickly start to lose the sharpness of corners).
I spent last evening at the local Makerspace. I chatted with those there about the issues with the drip system and the Peachy in general. MANY ideas flowed back and forth. It was a great night !!
The one thing that struck me about all the conversation is that everyone wanted to keep the drip system. Why? Because of the crazy high Z resolution it enables. I STILL want a stepper based system where there is NO specified time span per layer and I believe that a similar or same resolution can be achieved. We will see.
What's apparent is that there's lots of room left in the dripper system!
I sat down and outlined a bunch of stuff around this today. Here it is for your enjoyment ;-)
Peachy Z-Axis Dripper Thoughts
Dripper Problems
Layer Draw Time
-Limited by time to cure resin
-Limited by speed of rising Z-Axis
Drip Speed slows over time
-As the water levels change in the two bottles, the siphon strength drops
Drip Spikes when raising drip bottle
-Placing objects under the bottle to raise it
Drop size inconsistent with drip speed
-Fast drops are smaller
-Slower drops are bigger
Wasted time on simple layers
-Drip speed must be low enough to allow printing the most complex layer. All other layers will have to wait for the resin level to finish filing before the next layer can start.
Dripper Advantages
Super Inexpensive
-Readably available parts
Simple
-No electronics required
Insanely thin Z layers (0.02mm)
Possible Improvements for the Dripper System
Build Container
Increasing the surface area of the build container will dampen (but not resolve) Drip Spikes(2) and increase Layer Draw Time(1)
A Look at Surface area change
2 Liter Pop bottle (4" diameter)
Area = Pi * R^2
Pop bottle area = (3.1415 * (10.16cm / 2) ^ 2)
= 81.07 cm^2
Glass cylinder I just happen to have ;-) (5 5/16" diameter)
Area = (3.1415 * (13.4cm / 2) ^ 2)
= 141.03 cm^2
That's 1.74 TIMES more surface area !! Quite a difference !!
Drip Bottle Lift
What's required is a way to SMOOTHLY lift the drip container to maintain / control drip speed.
Using a scissor jack (as mentioned on 3D Print board by Dezi) would allow the dripper bottle to be raised/lowered smoothly.
The jacks height may be an issue if it is too short.
Wasted time on simple layers could be reduced by raising the dripper bottle even more to speed up the layer. You just need to be aware of any complex layers coming up so that the drip speed is appropriately reduced for that layer. This would be a manual process.
I think that just these TWO changes could substantially improve the functionality of the Peachy printer !!
A peristaltic pump would give the possibility to control the drips without losing the detail resolution the drip system provides, and it even gives the ability to withdraw and empty out the container at the end... (ie, let's say 5 pulses = 1um, after each layer i want to raise by 0.1mm -> send 500 pulses, resume printing)
Can you find a printable version and post a link? I will find time to test it along side printing and testing the scissor jack.
J