CTC Printer fundermentals for a good printing platform

[Horendus]

I thought I would post some tips on printer setup for this style of printer.

I know they may seem obvious to some but it took me quite a few hours to work this stuff out myself as I have not found any other forum posts addressing these fundamental parts of 3D printing, especially the fact that your always going to be fighting the inertia of your print head/extruder!

These tips are all from my own experience and have really improved my print quality.

Tip #1: Make sure the desk or bench your printer does not have any wobble or movements. It took me quite a few hours to realize the strange resonance waves I was getting through large flat prints was my desks slight wobble. Once I realized this I braces my desk up against my wall.

Tip #2: Make sure all of the screw in your frame are tight. Once I went around and tightening everything up, in conjunction with my now secure desk I was getting much smoother layers with no resonance patterns when printing at 25mm/s. Any higher some patterns would return.

Tip #3: Add rubber feet to your printer. This will further absorb vibrations. My printer shipped with 3D printed feet which didn't fit properly on one side and actually caused extra vibrations. Vibrations are your enemy!

Tip #4: In the printer settings, change your Z axis offset to -2mm, loosen your bed screws all the way and re level with this new offset. This adds 2mm less tension on your bed plates spring suspension. Its like a car, hard suspension will allow you to feel ALL the bumps. We don't want that. After I did this I was able to get resonance free large flat prints at up to 45mm/s. Excellent gain.


If anyone has any other tips on getting a super solid build platform then please post as I feel these kinds of fundamental setup tips are lacking for people new to 3D printing !

[EagleSeven]

CTC bed Stiffeners.jpg

Adding bed-plate Stiffeners greatly improves the Z-axis stability.
Bed-plate does Not need to be removed to install the stiffeners, they just slip on sides.

These can be downloaded and printed from Thingiverse.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:661574

click picture for larger view:

[Bobby Lin]

Great tips you shared in here, Horendus! Thanks for sharing it!

[EagleSeven]

I found that those bed-plate Stiffeners get a little loose after a while,
so I added a small piece of 2" wide clear Tape (box tape), at sides, to hold them in tight to brackets.
and that fixed the problem.

The stiffeners are a Great Improvement !
I wish I knew who designed them, I would like to Thank them personally !

[EagleSeven]

Metal Stiffeners.jpg

I found a set of metal platform stiffeners on eBay,
if you do not want to print them yourself.

These bolt to bed-plate, which may be better ??
but will be more difficult to install.

click on picture to enlarge:

[Thor]

Horendus, regarding tip #4: I can find nothing in the printer settings that allow for an offset to the A axis. Others have suggested that the only way to offset the Z axis is to use a shim on the limit switch. I would appreciate it if there is a way to do this using settings.