How to turn off the dual extrusion windbreaks from proftweak

[curious aardvark]

so having unblocked my right nozzle. I thought I'd print a dual extrusion traffic cone.
Glass plate with blue tape on. Seemed to work very well.

But it printed a windbreak round the cone that made the print time about 3x what it would have been. And these extruders don't seem to do stringing anyway.

So for some prints I would definitely want the windbreak turned off.

Any ideas how ?

[Geoff]

so having unblocked my right nozzle. I thought I'd print a dual extrusion traffic cone.
Glass plate with blue tape on. Seemed to work very well.

But it printed a windbreak round the cone that made the print time about 3x what it would have been. And these extruders don't seem to do stringing anyway.

So for some prints I would definitely want the windbreak turned off.

Any ideas how ?

It's not a wind break mate, it's a nozzle cleaning wall. The nozzles both stay hot so they ooze a little every now and then, this is just life. You can lower retraction rates but you still get dribble. When the extruders drag over these walls, it cleans the dribble off each one, other wise you get dots of dribbled plastic of different colours mixing in your dual extrusion.

Print a dual extrusion with Replicator G to see one without walls, it wont generate them - but when you do I almost guarantee you will go back and after a while see how important those dribble walls are.

[curious aardvark]

lol i know what they are for.
But they really do look like the sort of windbreak you'd have on a beach.
For quite a number of prints, they definitely won't be needed.
once i figure the issue with righty(he's got extrusion issues), i'll try the same thing from rep-g.

Still got same stick issue, even with blue tape. raft sticks - nothing without raft does.
i'll try vinyl next.

ps. for some reason when i posted from my 3ds (in bed) it removed all the carriage returns. :-)

[Geoff]

lol i know what they are for.but they really do look like the sort of windbreak you'd have on a beach.but for quite a number of prints, they definitely won't be needed.once i figure the issue with righty, i'll try the same thing from rep-g.still got same stick issue, even with blue tape. raft sticks - nothing without raft does.i'll try vinyl next.

lol sorry mate, I thought you meant windbreak as in to stop drafts blowing on your print...

Really? no raftless on blue tape? what happens when you print? does it stick at all?

[curious aardvark]

no, absolutely no stick.

I went down as slow as 2cms last night. The line along the edge of the plate sticks, then everything else just gets caught up on the nozzle.
If I wasn't in an industry where frustration is counterproductive - I'd be banging my head against a wall by now.

The calibrations are good. paper just goes between the heads. I get no head drag whatsoever, and rafts print really well.

But as soon as I try something without a raft - no stick.
I've got some vinyl plumbers tape I think I'll try tonight. On the gorunds it's just like thick hairspray (well sorta).

I did get a couple of almost prints from abs glue on glass.
That's probably been the most succesful to date.
But man I seem to be getting through a lot of acetone - can't be good for me breathing the fumes.

This is where the lack of layer control in the makerbot software is annoying. Pretty sure if I did the first layer at 1cms with 105% extrusion - it'd stick. But I just can't work out any way of doign that and then having the rest print at a more normal speed and lower extrusion rate.

Having a bunch of glass plates to play around with helps no end.
Can't say my glass cutting skills are anything to write home about. But a quick application of a diamond file to the sharp bits (only one cut so far) sorts that out.

One thing I will say to anyone - do not buy 15cm wide kapton tape. It's just totally unmanageable. I almost got a layer on a plate, last night.
Almost lol

[Geoff]

no, absolutely no stick.

I went down as slow as 2cms last night. The line along the edge of the plate sticks, then everything else just gets caught up on the nozzle.
If I wasn't in an industry where frustration is counterproductive - I'd be banging my head against a wall by now.

The calibrations are good. paper just goes between the heads. I get no head drag whatsoever, and rafts print really well.

But as soon as I try something without a raft - no stick.
I've got some vinyl plumbers tape I think I'll try tonight. On the gorunds it's just like thick hairspray (well sorta).

I did get a couple of almost prints from abs glue on glass.
That's probably been the most succesful to date.
But man I seem to be getting through a lot of acetone - can't be good for me breathing the fumes.

This is where the lack of layer control in the makerbot software is annoying. Pretty sure if I did the first layer at 1cms with 105% extrusion - it'd stick. But I just can't work out any way of doign that and then having the rest print at a more normal speed and lower extrusion rate.

Having a bunch of glass plates to play around with helps no end.
Can't say my glass cutting skills are anything to write home about. But a quick application of a diamond file to the sharp bits (only one cut so far) sorts that out.

One thing I will say to anyone - do not buy 15cm wide kapton tape. It's just totally unmanageable. I almost got a layer on a plate, last night.
Almost lol

Aha!

Kapton is not your enemy.. and for the first 20 months, that's all I printed raftless...

I used to try and put an entire bed on, it took me 10 goes, my wife was screaming from helping me so long hold the roll tight, I was screaming because I was getting air bubbles, I hated it..


then I thought hang on.. why the hell am I putting an entire bed on? Do I NEED to print a 22cm long object??? No I don't, it's only 5cm... and alot of the busts I print are more about height, so as long as I have that centre covered, the rest of the plate can stay bare.

Kapton, Blue tape it protects your plate in NO WAY AT ALL lol... it is there for stick, it doesnt help insulation, in fact anything you put on it lowers its base temp, kapton is the thinnest - but I can't say I havent had success raftless with blue tape either. I sometimes even hold the bottom of the bed and lift it to get a really tight first layer (i know, probably a bad practice) but it works for me.

So instead, I now put about half a plate on, right in the middle and make sure the starting line is covered.

Crease it in the middle , middle gets on plate first, use a credit card to smooth bubbles out on each side, it IS forgiving, if you stick it it can be unstuck and reapplied without bubbles.

[curious aardvark]

I have a technique. put the glass plate on some nonslip matting. then anchor the edge of the tape to my workdesk. I can then stretch the whole length of the glass and slide it down tight and smooth - well that's the theory.
Actually if the jar with the detergent solution hadn't mysteriously emptied itself (think it fell over) I reckon I'd have got it in one.
I'll refill the jar and try again tonight.

The tape is 15cm wide, that's the problem, it's just really awkward to handle. But I reckon with the detergent to let it slide a little and using the big scraper, it should work.
By comparison the 24mm wide painters tape is childsplay to use.

The other problem is how long every thing takes lol
I really need a few days doing nothing else but working out settings and print surfaces, rather than just a few hours at night and into the next day.

The kapton on the aluminium printbed is buggered. Scraper marks and painting it with abs glue (bad idea) have taken it's toll. There is no way in hell I can replace that inside the machie with a 15 cm roll of kapton tape.

Just as well I've got glass beds instead really :-)