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

[curious aardvark]

I'm pretty sure I printed the chainmail with 0% infill and only 2 shells.
Basically there's no piece thick enough to worry about infill.
Could have been 10% though - is there any way of reading an x3g file to tell what the settings are ?

Anyway it was either 10% or 0% infill and 2 shells.
And the links really didn't need breaking. Not like the gear wheel - this was pretty much loose when i peeled it off the bed.

Just reduced the clasp size on the bracelet - and yep - it's looking like a long openscad compile.
Even on my quadcore desktop.
Basically he's got a 10mm slab of plastic before the male tongue of the clasp. As far as I cna see it's just to match the size of the femal component. Which is daft as it gives you a 20mm thick solid bit of unbendy plastic. I've just cut the 10mm block down to 2mm. Which is sufficient for strength and should give the bracelet a bit more flexibility.

It is an amazing thing. Needs to be a bit longer, Presumably i can add more rows.

Just a shame I can't do it in abs. As I could mix the two different thermochromatic filament I've got.
That said I'll probably buy some thermo chromatic pla for the job :-)

[Geoff]

I'm pretty sure I printed the chainmail with 0% infill and only 2 shells.
Basically there's no piece thick enough to worry about infill.
Could have been 10% though - is there any way of reading an x3g file to tell what the settings are ?

Anyway it was either 10% or 0% infill and 2 shells.
And the links really didn't need breaking. Not like the gear wheel - this was pretty much loose when i peeled it off the bed.

Just reduced the clasp size on the bracelet - and yep - it's looking like a long openscad compile.
Even on my quadcore desktop.
Basically he's got a 10mm slab of plastic before the male tongue of the clasp. As far as I cna see it's just to match the size of the femal component. Which is daft as it gives you a 20mm thick solid bit of unbendy plastic. I've just cut the 10mm block down to 2mm. Which is sufficient for strength and should give the bracelet a bit more flexibility.

It is an amazing thing. Needs to be a bit longer, Presumably i can add more rows.

Just a shame I can't do it in abs. As I could mix the two different thermochromatic filament I've got.
That said I'll probably buy some thermo chromatic pla for the job :-)

I think it's parametric isnt it? I am not an openscad man, but from what ive seen you can make an entire suit of this stuff, silver PLA would look kick ass.

The gear wheel.. don't get me started... took me 3 goes before I could print that with a low enough tolerance to actually get the thing to turn.. oh and I finally after all this time managed to print a perfect secret heart box! I got this fluro yellow PLA that is really really good, no curls, no globbling... its just a shame its fluro yellow!
.......................

[curious aardvark]

lol sounds like the same pla I'm using.
Well My first two gear wheels needed electric powered help to get them turning. But worked fine.
Yeah the mail bracelet is parametric - it's just reading the script to work out ho to add rows I'm struggling with. Changing the clasp parts - that I can understand. But all the weird stuff for the chainmail - be years, if ever, before any of that makes sense to me :-)
Arithmetic I can do - but complex maths, just never interested me.

The gearwheel too is an openscad file. Pretty sure you can adjust the gap between gears. There's no reason you couldn't print one with pla that came off the bed freewheeling.

[Geoff]

lol sounds like the same pla I'm using.
Well My first two gear wheels needed electric powered help to get them turning. But worked fine.
Yeah the mail bracelet is parametric - it's just reading the script to work out ho to add rows I'm struggling with. Changing the clasp parts - that I can understand. But all the weird stuff for the chainmail - be years, if ever, before any of that makes sense to me :-)
Arithmetic I can do - but complex maths, just never interested me.

The gearwheel too is an openscad file. Pretty sure you can adjust the gap between gears. There's no reason you couldn't print one with pla that came off the bed freewheeling.

I loaded it into blender, select the gears, move the origin to the centre of the geometry on each gear as a seperate mesh and rescale them at their individual origins by 1mm, that's how I got it working anyway, otherwise the thing would just fuse together.

[Serena]

Made one! Thanks for sharing that design Aardvark. That is super fun! This one is ABS. Simpliy3d took less than a minute to slice it- think you said you had that one... it is always pretty quick. I would think that would be a good leveling test print to do too. If I had two I'd feel like Wonder Woman.

Photo Oct 08, 9 18 08 AM.jpg

[curious aardvark]

in abs ? That's impressive.

With or without a raft ?

Once I've tested the new smaller clasp I'll upload that as a mix.
Currently making some bits for my mates workbench :-)
And as I paid for it I really ought to start using simplify3d.

[Serena]

in abs ? That's impressive.

With or without a raft ?

Once I've tested the new smaller clasp I'll upload that as a mix.
Currently making some bits for my mates workbench :-)
And as I paid for it I really ought to start using simplify3d.

no raft. 0 infill. The clasp on one side was a little funky but it still works fine. Yeah I really like Simplify3d. I think it's a really good option for beginners who just want to start with basic settings at first. And it does slice crazy fast and does great break away supports that don't leave any damage.

[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