Sore fingers, amazement, frustrations and hair spray: First days with my Creator Pro

[jdg56]

Cool. Keep us updated.

I will definitely check that out- thanks for the tip! Especially since last night I tore my tape wedging a print off. Grrr.... retaping that kapton is something I really don't enjoy doing.

When I got my (first) glass bed, I was concerned about how to apply the kapton tape. I'm afraid I didn't keep the link, but Googling how to apply kapton tape turned up a Youtube clip that is an excellent solution.

This is not suitable for the built-in bed, as it involved liquid, which will not play well with the bed heater.

parts: bed, bowl of water, healthy dollop of dish washing soap (liquid), your kapton tape, old credit card

Wash the removable bed and dry it, to clean it off. In a small bowl, mix some water and a healthy dollop of dish-washing detergent. Measure out your kapton so it's ready to go, put the bed on a towel to sop up the excess liquid, and then liberally coat the bed with the soapy water. I mean, a total lot of liquid on the bed.

When you place the kapton tape on the bed, it will not stick. It will float on the water, letting you align the edges. Once it's square to the edges, hold it down in one spot and use the edge of the credit card to gently squeegee out the water from under the tape. You'll need to do this multiple times before it starts to stick to the bed, but when it starts to stick on the end you're squeegeeing, squeegee the end you've been holding. Any air bubbles will be driven out along with the soapy water, so you wind up with a nice flat bed with no bubbles. if it shifts the first few times you squeegee, you can just reposition it, since it's still floating on some water.

After the entire bed is 'dry', I fold the tape under the ends and let it stick to the bottom of the bed to hold it in place. With my glass beds, I try to make sure that the overhang folded under the bed is longer on one end than the other, so I can orient the glass the same way after I remove it to wash of the glue stick I use for my abs printing. The plates I have are pretty even, but one of them is off by about .2mm between one corner and it's opposite, so I level it in one orientation and then always install it the same way after that. If you're doing this with an aluminum bed, I suppose you could just write 'R' on the right side with a permanent marker, since the tape is transparent.

That's it. It works flawlessly for me. I do a preheat cycle to drive out any water that may remain under the bed.

I have 6" kapton. This should work with narrower strips, if you do one at a time. Once the kapton is stuck down, it doesn't seem to mind repeated washing.

Cheers,

John

[Geoff]

When I got my (first) glass bed, I was concerned about how to apply the kapton tape. I'm afraid I didn't keep the link, but Googling how to apply kapton tape turned up a Youtube clip that is an excellent solution.

This is not suitable for the built-in bed, as it involved liquid, which will not play well with the bed heater.

parts: bed, bowl of water, healthy dollop of dish washing soap (liquid), your kapton tape, old credit card

Wash the removable bed and dry it, to clean it off. In a small bowl, mix some water and a healthy dollop of dish-washing detergent. Measure out your kapton so it's ready to go, put the bed on a towel to sop up the excess liquid, and then liberally coat the bed with the soapy water. I mean, a total lot of liquid on the bed.

When you place the kapton tape on the bed, it will not stick. It will float on the water, letting you align the edges. Once it's square to the edges, hold it down in one spot and use the edge of the credit card to gently squeegee out the water from under the tape. You'll need to do this multiple times before it starts to stick to the bed, but when it starts to stick on the end you're squeegeeing, squeegee the end you've been holding. Any air bubbles will be driven out along with the soapy water, so you wind up with a nice flat bed with no bubbles. if it shifts the first few times you squeegee, you can just reposition it, since it's still floating on some water.

After the entire bed is 'dry', I fold the tape under the ends and let it stick to the bottom of the bed to hold it in place. With my glass beds, I try to make sure that the overhang folded under the bed is longer on one end than the other, so I can orient the glass the same way after I remove it to wash of the glue stick I use for my abs printing. The plates I have are pretty even, but one of them is off by about .2mm between one corner and it's opposite, so I level it in one orientation and then always install it the same way after that. If you're doing this with an aluminum bed, I suppose you could just write 'R' on the right side with a permanent marker, since the tape is transparent.

That's it. It works flawlessly for me. I do a preheat cycle to drive out any water that may remain under the bed.

I have 6" kapton. This should work with narrower strips, if you do one at a time. Once the kapton is stuck down, it doesn't seem to mind repeated washing.

Cheers,

John

I stopped doing that a few months ago, instead now I just use a smaller piece of kapton (because why cover the entire bed if you are not using it all?)

Now, I cut about half a plate of kapton off the roll, put it right in the middle, and if there is bubbles keep lifting and re-applying using a credit card to smooth the bubbles. The smaller the piece of kapton, the easier it is to work with.

[jdg56]

I stopped doing that a few months ago, instead now I just use a smaller piece of kapton (because why cover the entire bed if you are not using it all?)

Now, I cut about half a plate of kapton off the roll, put it right in the middle, and if there is bubbles keep lifting and re-applying using a credit card to smooth the bubbles. The smaller the piece of kapton, the easier it is to work with.

I'll have to try that next time. I tend to print stuff all over the plate, moving from one corner to the other, to maximize the printing I can do before I have to wash it off and re-apply the glue stick. However, you are right, it might be easier to just do partial coverage.

Cheers,

John

[curious aardvark]

well the 3dp bed coating was a definite windup.
I'm wondering just how many people came away from the show and wiped their build plate down with beer !
Yeah i know, but they were very persuasive and it was a cohesive effort across the whole team.

I tried it twice - so they definitely got me :-)

My biggest problem with blue tape and pla is getting LESS stick !
Think I might be getting there. I've de-calibrated slightly and lowered the pla temp to the point where any lower and it won't stick at all.


For designing I love openscad. I can't draw, never could, never will.
But I do have very good visualisation and 3d perception. So I know what i want and where I want it and openscad lets me just tell it what I want and where to put it.

It can look a little disconcerting at first. But once you realise the syntax is the same no matter what - you just get used to sticking in the brackets and the rest is basic arithmetic.

You can make something simple like an open topped box with three lines of basic code. Takes about 30 seconds. try that in a gui cad package.

The more you use it, the easier it is to do complicated things. Some of the most complex models on thingiverse are done in openscad.

[Geoff]

well the 3dp bed coating was a definite windup.
I'm wondering just how many people came away from the show and wiped their build plate down with beer !
Yeah i know, but they were very persuasive and it was a cohesive effort across the whole team.

I tried it twice - so they definitely got me :-)

My biggest problem with blue tape and pla is getting LESS stick !
Think I might be getting there. I've de-calibrated slightly and lowered the pla temp to the point where any lower and it won't stick at all.


For designing I love openscad. I can't draw, never could, never will.
But I do have very good visualisation and 3d perception. So I know what i want and where I want it and openscad lets me just tell it what I want and where to put it.

It can look a little disconcerting at first. But once you realise the syntax is the same no matter what - you just get used to sticking in the brackets and the rest is basic arithmetic.

You can make something simple like an open topped box with three lines of basic code. Takes about 30 seconds. try that in a gui cad package.

The more you use it, the easier it is to do complicated things. Some of the most complex models on thingiverse are done in openscad.

Openscad still escapes me lol sorry, even thou by nature I am an old school programmer, when it comes to modelling I find it very hard to go from a visual design perspective to a mathematical one. After 5 years of blender, I know all my metrics, I know which machines and what software screws up those metrics (like makerware reduces ALL models by 0.8% scale when printing. keep that in mind) so I sort have been sticking with Blender and RepG/makerware/pronterface

For PLA not to stick, that's wierd, how hot is your bed? i'd even try turning it off completely.

[Roxy]

For designing I love openscad. I can't draw, never could, never will.
...
The more you use it, the easier it is to do complicated things. Some of the most complex models on thingiverse are done in openscad.

OpenScad Rocks! (But somebody needs to fix the render engine. The stupid thing takes forever to do its thing.)

[Serena]

For designing I love openscad. I can't draw, never could, never will.
But I do have very good visualisation and 3d perception. So I know what i want and where I want it and openscad lets me just tell it what I want and where to put it.

I think the two of us put together would be the perfect designer. I love to draw and am very visual. I resent anything that makes me do math. In terms of working with software-If I can't see it than it doesn't exist.

Openscad still escapes me lol sorry, even thou by nature I am an old school programmer, when it comes to modelling I find it very hard to go from a visual design perspective to a mathematical one. After 5 years of blender, I know all my metrics, I know which machines and what software screws up those metrics (like makerware reduces ALL models by 0.8% scale when printing. keep that in mind) so I sort have been sticking with Blender and RepG/makerware/pronterface

For PLA not to stick, that's wierd, how hot is your bed? i'd even try turning it off completely.

OpenScad Rocks! (But somebody needs to fix the render engine. The stupid thing takes forever to do its thing.)

It's always interesting to me how differently people go about similar tasks. The beauty is there is so many software options out there everyone can find something that works for them. The down side to that is when you are new to it all, the researching and finding what you like is so overwhelming. Too many choices! Geoff sounds like you and I think much the same on modeling. I definitely like to find what works and gives me the visuals I want and then stick to it. I just hate my choppy workflow at the moment. But it will come in time... What I've learned so far is that half the battle is knowing the questions to ask (Or google). When I say "texture" i think of surface changes- physical highs and lows on the surface. I'm learning that in 3d modeling texture means an applied material that simulates the look of texture but doesn't effect the actual geometry in any way. I spent many hours learning some great techniques that will only show up on 3d renders but would be non existent in printing. (This may be majorly stating the obvious to you guys- but it's something that was so hard for me to find explained anywhere!) Sigh....So today my project is learning displacement maps on Blender. Since that seems to be the only way I've found to get what I'm looking for. If anyone has any insight on that I would be most grateful.

Also, on to actual printing-so I had this strange result. Wondered if anyone can tell me what the heck happened with this print:
Photo Oct 07, 9 10 44 AM.jpg

It's an ampersand that I did with no infill, 0.1mm height and 2 shells. My first time using no infill-Is that why the top layer turned out like this? When I look at the slicing it looks solid.

[Roxy]

The problem is without any infill, it had a hard time bridging the large gaps. In Slic3r, you could bump the number of top layers up to something like 10. Because with what you have right now, another 4 or 5 top layers would have been able to bridge those openings completely.

[curious aardvark]

or just use 5% infill and it'll have something to bridge across.
Hollow things are usually things with curves, not usually things with large flat areas.
Also without active cooling you'll get more sag and less bridge.

For the sake of adding a couple grams infill, and a little extra printing time - but getting a perfect model every time. I usually add the infill.

Anyway talking of prints that blow you away. And to prove to myself that I've got the pla settings nailed down. I printed a chainmail bracelet. Designed in openscad :-)
Not by me - I'm a long way from being able to do this.

chainbraceletfull_800x179.jpg

Zoomed in

chainbraceletzoom_800x567.jpg

Flexible

chainbraceletbend_800x517.jpg

Fully Working catch.

chainbraceletclose_800x600.jpg

Second one being printed, just to prove I can do it again :-)

chainbraceletprint_800x237.jpg

There's a bit of support on the tongue of the catch that needs removing. Sharp knife and a file did that.
And viola. If you know anyone who's not blown away by your 3d printer - show them this and I guarentee they will be !

My less stick pla basically devolved down to extrusion temp.
Keep lowering it till it doesn't stick and then add a few degrees till it does. Job done.
This came off pretty easily.
Only takes an hour to print.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:399474/#files

The one I printed is the small one - I'll do the big one next. I have pretty thick wrists (officially large bones - I looked it up).
This small one should do most women and kids. The big one is another 3 inches or so in length.

Oh yeah - one word of caution. This took makerware a number of hours to slice. I don't know how many I went to bed and left it to it.

I'll try the same thing on simplify3d later and see how much faster it is. Not that much I don't think.
We'll see.

Oh yeah print settings.
60mms, 0.27 layer (what it says to do it at) 190 temp and 50c bed temp.

I know I don't need to heat the bed with pla - but making it warm keeps all the variables as samey as possible for consistent results.

[Roxy]

Very Cool!!!!! I bet you can feel the individual links break free when you bend it the first time!

UPDATE: It takes hours to compile and render in Open_SCAD. I guess the Slic3r will take a similar amount of time.