Experimentation: Print Pausing, Part Insertion, Techniques.

[LambdaFF]

Hi to all of you,
I was just wondering about the feasability of something. Have any of you tried to insert anything in your prints (like pausing to insert a bush or bearing into a part for instance) ?
Let us know about your trick for that. Photo anyone ?

[old man emu]

Funny you should mention that. I was thinking of a way to insert a metal stiffener into the arm of a hinge.

What I thought I could do was design the hinge in two halves, with a suitably sized slot where I want the stiffener to go. I would slice the stl file as usual, and then open he Gcode file in Notepad. I would look for the line that printed the layer that was at the halfway thickness point. The I would edit the gcode to insert a pause command which would allow me to place the metal stiffener into the slot. Then I would give the code a manual restart command to let it go on printing the other half. In this way, the metal stiffener would be embedded in the piece.

You could modify this procedure to allow you to insert bushes and bearings.

Old Man Emu

[Davo]

Yes, you just put a pause/resume command in your gcode between the layers where you want to insert the object... assuming you have some functionality that allows pausing and resuming. Ensure that your model has negative space to receive the object.

We do this on a certain tool after the build; we place a nut in a hexagonal cavity and heat it with a soldering iron until it seats. I don't have any images lying around, sorry.

[hercemer]

I haven’t tried pausing a print to insert an object but I have tried to pause and swap colors.

My prints always fall apart at the color change / pause. I’m assuming it’s because the plastic cools during the pause – by the time I withdraw and extrude a new color the model has cooled too much for the new color to stick.

That’s just a guess, but it wouldn’t hurt to pause for as little time as possible while you insert your object.

[beerdart]

Cura comes with a "Plug-In" called pause at height where you tell it when to pause and where to park the head,

[RobH2]

I'm starting a thread about something I'm interested in and have not experimented with much. That's stopping the print and inserting things, wires, nuts, reinforcements, etc., and then resuming the print to encapsulate them. Member "beerdart" mentioned that Cura has a plugin that handles that. I'm going to move his post over here and open the floor. It's the first thread above this one.

[beerdart]

I have yet to play with it but may try on this part to change filament color for the raised letters. Just waiting on some red filament to show up Im going with a black ring and red letters.

[RobH2]

I'm assuming you have a one head printer and you are going to stop it, change to red, let it do the letters? Is that the plan?

It looks like the highest part of the letters it the height of the main body. But, the base of the letters is some number of layers lower. Are you going to have the head just go into the letter area and print? If the head moves too far the wrong way it will hit the higher print and mess things up. Maybe it's a shadow in the photo and the letters bases are the height of the rest of the ring.

I'm curious about this...

[beerdart]

Yes its a single head my plan is to stop for the change after the first or second layer of the letters above the part.

[RobH2]

I look forward to seeing it. I've been thinking about going "dual" head. Until then, I might try doing what you are doing a bit. Post some photos after you get it going.

I want to make a part, insert some wires and reinforcement, and then seal it in. It's not brain surgery I don't think. I need to find the Cura plugin you are talking about. It might turn out to be pretty simple. I worry about the already laid down layers cooling off too much and then the new layers not sticking. Is that an issue do you think?