The twisted rook

[Mjolinor]

After many many failed attempts I have finally managed to print this complete with its DNA inside.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:399545

Not such a big deal but I have to tell someone.

I have done away with the heated bed and use ABS to print on then just slide the bed out and flex it to remove the prints. Since doing that nothing has failed to stick. The hair dryer keeps the inside at a constant 65 degrees C ish at head height. The hair dryer motor is driven from the 24 volt PSU and runs constantly, the hair dryer heater runs on mains through a relay driven from the heated bed output so temperature is set in the gcode.

It is a four hour print made of transparent ABS 40% fill and it looks cool with an LED under it.

It has taken me 2 months to print it and I broke a castellation off removing it from the printer.

[Roxy]

I pulled it into NetFab so I could rotate and look at it. I like the circular staircase inside it. But from a practical standpoint, I think the opening in the top should be smaller so there is more room for solders to stand and run around the top. After all... They need to defend against what ever on the ground. Of course... If you were trying to be practical instead of artistic, there wouldn't be a double helix in the middle, right?

Very Cool!

[Mjolinor]

Pah, little soldiers, I'll use it as a seat for my action man, that will make any small people that want to be domiciled there think twice.

[curious aardvark]

Keep meaning to print that.

So why did you print it so big ?
My plan was to print same size as the sla machines and compare and contrast :-)

I might give that a go later :-)
Doesn't look like it should be that difficult.

So what problems have you had with it ?

looks a bit rough - what layer resolution did you use ?

Also looks like you probably need cooling on your print area more than heating in the case.
Try it again with a thin equal height column next to it. Think you'll find it's massively improved. Just needs some cooling between layers.

[Mjolinor]

0.254 layer height but printed very fast, 90 mm/s. I printed it the size it was, I just got the STL off Thingiverse. The big problem I am trying to fix is a garbled LCD screen after it has been printing some hours. This is related to heat I think but I cannot find where the problem is. I am sure it would be a lot better printed more slowly and from an SD card rather than over serial, over serial it has a lot of pauses that don't do it any favours.

I didn't have a specific problem just lots of failed attempts, water in filament, jumping toothed belt on X axis, clogged head because of the heat shield tube and then the nozzles. Just turned out to be an epic but let me find a lot of things that needed attention really.

[Roxy]

When do we see the Twisted Knight and the Twisted Bishop?

[curious aardvark]

okay printing it 50% size (ie: normal chess piece size) at 0.2 with pla (my new bestest friend).
Not looking bad - the central spira is there.

I think I'll leave it printing the same thing at 0.1 when i go to work.
Some minor edges on the outer spiral - but doesn't look too bad.

Finished - it's all there. inner and outer spiral - staircase. Not totally smooth on the outer spiral. Inner spiral looks pretty amazing - can't see any areas where the two strands touch !
So the next one will be max detail and slowness. Now that's going to be interesting. Should take a couple of hours.
I'll grt back to you later :-)

[Mjolinor]

I printed a 50% one at 60 mm/s and it looks better but that spiral edge is not too good. Central DNA is not smooth, seems like a series of blobs. I think this transparent filament is not good. When I first opened it it was really bubbly, I posted a pic on here somewhere of it. I seriously dried it and left it in a sealed bag with loads of silica gel. When I used it again it was dead smooth with no bubbles but now it has been open a week it is all bubbly again. Maybe I'll sell it as flexible silica gel, it seems to absorb much water very readily.

It's amazing what a difference the filament makes and that makes it impossible to know your settings before you have basically used half a roll.

[Dargonfly]

okay printing it 50% size (ie: normal chess piece size) at 0.2 with pla (my new bestest friend).
Not looking bad - the central spira is there.

I think I'll leave it printing the same thing at 0.1 when i go to work.
Some minor edges on the outer spiral - but doesn't look too bad.

Finished - it's all there. inner and outer spiral - staircase. Not totally smooth on the outer spiral. Inner spiral looks pretty amazing - can't see any areas where the two strands touch !
So the next one will be max detail and slowness. Now that's going to be interesting. Should take a couple of hours.
I'll grt back to you later :-)

I printed a 50% one at 60 mm/s and it looks better but that spiral edge is not too good. Central DNA is not smooth, seems like a series of blobs. I think this transparent filament is not good. When I first opened it it was really bubbly, I posted a pic on here somewhere of it. I seriously dried it and left it in a sealed bag with loads of silica gel. When I used it again it was dead smooth with no bubbles but now it has been open a week it is all bubbly again. Maybe I'll sell it as flexible silica gel, it seems to absorb much water very readily.

It's amazing what a difference the filament makes and that makes it impossible to know your settings before you have basically used half a roll.

Both of you; post images if you can! I'd love to see the results - and it makes it easier to share experience.
I will print some as soon as I have my new-and-improved cooling setup ready to go (probably near the end of this week.)

[curious aardvark]

The .2 mm is better
I printed the 0.1 too slow I think.

here they are with a standard size marvin - the rooks are 35.6mm high.

rookswithmarvin_800x481.jpg

The 0.2mm one - the other one is the same but rougher.

rookpoint2_279x600.jpg

rookpoint2zoom_679x600.jpg

Not up to form one detail - but probably better than the peachy ;-)

All the details is there - just needs arctic quality cooling.
But I love this pla stuff - my only complaint is that it sticks too much to the blue tape lol

I might have to try the 3dp windup again :-)