Soon to be new owner of a Creator Pro

[Stigern]

Hi

Just ordered me a Creator Pro, and I'm just curious to if there are any tips or upgrades that are a must-have?

[Dargonfly]

A addon fan for cooling extruded material is good for a lot of situations:

It's these two:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:295317
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:350649
Combined together, both printed in ABS. As you can see in the first link it has ducts that redirect the air to where the extruder is placing the material, thus cooling the extruded material that much faster! Because you want the material to cool from +-230 degrees to 30 degrees as fast as possible so that it retains its shape and doesn't warp.

There's also the adjustment knobs for leveling the bed that can be sore on the fingers, for that there's this:

As for levelling - print a set of these knobs and you won't burn your fingers any more :-)
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:243998
Use some of the spare nuts that came in your little bag of bits.

Snipped those from Curious Aardvarks comment in this topic:
http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...my-Creator-Pro
Which is probably a good topic to read when your going to start with the Flashforge. (because everybody runs into the same 'problems' at the start.)

Also, feel free to ask. Lot's of experienced and helpful people on this board.

[Stigern]

Thanks for you reply.

I see there is also a glass bed available. To my understanding adding a glass bed will sort most of the issues regarding not sticking? or am I mistaken?

[Dargonfly]

Thanks for you reply.

I see there is also a glass bed available. To my understanding adding a glass bed will sort most of the issues regarding not sticking? or am I mistaken?

You'd have to ask someone with a glass bed for his/her experience with it.
But a lot of things can work depending on environment/filament/user/settings. Lots of people have zero problems with blue tape, others use kapton, I myself use BuildTak.
If it works - it works. So first try the kapton (which is delivered with the product) or blue tape. Because both are easy obtainable and replaceble. If you have issues then, first check all your other settings, and then start thinking about glass / buildTak / other build surface.

[curious aardvark]

The glass bed doesn't so much fix the sticking as ensure that you have a perfectly level bed.

The problem with screwed in place aluminium beds is that the constant expanding and contracting when they're heated and cooled - will inevitably lead to a non-flat surface. And when you're dealing with distances as small as 100 microns, ANY variation from dead level will effect how a print sticks to the bed.

Glass beds also expand and contract - though to a lesser degree. but don't change shape over time.

[LakeDuck]

Stigern, I also am a newbie. Just got my printer yesterday. Printed the 2 color cone with no issues. I had to level the bed several times to get it to work.
I tried to convert an stl to gcode and put it on the SD card but the printer seems to only see the x3g file not the gcode file I created.

[Stigern]

Stigern, I also am a newbie. Just got my printer yesterday. Printed the 2 color cone with no issues. I had to level the bed several times to get it to work.
I tried to convert an stl to gcode and put it on the SD card but the printer seems to only see the x3g file not the gcode file I created.

Oh, so the Creator can't read gcode?

How do people solve this? Or are all printing trough USB?

[JohnA136]

Since it is based on a Clone MakerBot Mightyboard, you need Replicator G or Sailfish to convert your G code file to something the Mightboard will read. I just use Replicator G with our old, reliable Replicator XL. Just did one of those Zombie Killer Heads at 50 microns on Kapton Tape with a little ABS Slurry. Took over 17 hours to print!

IMG_4057.jpg

p.s., we run all our printers now untethered (except our new Printerbot Simple) off of a SD Card or USB Thumb Drive .

[Geoff]

The glass bed doesn't so much fix the sticking as ensure that you have a perfectly level bed.

The problem with screwed in place aluminium beds is that the constant expanding and contracting when they're heated and cooled - will inevitably lead to a non-flat surface. And when you're dealing with distances as small as 100 microns, ANY variation from dead level will effect how a print sticks to the bed.

Glass beds also expand and contract - though to a lesser degree. but don't change shape over time.

The warped bed doesn't seem to affect sticking for me, it's the right angles and clean lines it affects more. If anything the outer edges stick better because the nozzle inherently is closer to the build than in the centre.

I am still baffled as to why you guys have so much problems getting things to stick, or print raftless on these creator pro's and X's ... perhaps the wooden case gets a bit warmer than the metal one? who knows..

[Dargonfly]

Since it is based on a Clone MakerBot Mightyboard, you need Replicator G or Sailfish to convert your G code file to something the Mightboard will read. I just use Replicator G with our old, reliable Replicator XL. Just did one of those Zombie Killer Heads at 50 microns on Kapton Tape with a little ABS Slurry. Took over 17 hours to print!

IMG_4057.jpg

p.s., we run all our printers now untethered (except our new Printerbot Simple) off of a SD Card or USB Thumb Drive .

Hijacking this topic: That is amazing. Can you perhaps post your settings? I cannot get ABS to print at a layer thickness lower then 0.2mm.

The warped bed doesn't seem to affect sticking for me, it's the right angles and clean lines it affects more. If anything the outer edges stick better because the nozzle inherently is closer to the build than in the centre.

I am still baffled as to why you guys have so much problems getting things to stick, or print raftless on these creator pro's and X's ... perhaps the wooden case gets a bit warmer than the metal one? who knows..

My bed is bent the other way around; the center is closer then the edges allowing edges to easily 'come off' at the start of the print. But I know how to deal with it now for PLA. ABS still is a bit trickier because it wants to warp more.