First print that didn't stick

[soofle616]

I'll be honest and say that I was semi-intentionally stress testing things just to see what would happen. I printed the calibration cube, then a desktop statuette from thingiverse, then another small part. All with rafts, and all without once cleaning the build surface (still the original kapton tape that it shipped with). All three prints seemed to have no problem sticking to the platform. Decided to try my hand at designing and printing a 2 color part and that's where it all went bad. My creator pro came with a handle for the acrylic door but the holes in the door were not wide enough apart to attach it. So I figured I'd just print a new one and use that as an excuse to try dual extrusion. I followed all 2 paragraphs of instructions in the manual on how to set up a 2 color print. Right away I could tell there was something wrong as the first layer seemed to be missing a big section but I let it run for a few minutes to see what would happen. After a while the part looked like it was printing but after a little more of a while when i checked back I noticed the ends were curling away from the platform and things weren't looking so great. Cancelled the print and removed the mess. My day is just about done so cleaning and test #2 will have to wait until tomorrow but in the meantime I'm curious about something. In the ReplicatorG instructions it says to uncheck the raft/support box in both pop-ups when generating the g-code. Why? Rafts definitely result in some post processing to get nice looking parts but they seem to work well as far as producing good prints. Is there a fault in the merge process that screws things up if the rafts are enabled?

In case anyone cares I'm printing with two colors of ABS, 230/110 nozzle/bed temps. Print was set to 2 shells, 20% infill, 60mm/s feedrate, .2mm layer height

[Serena]

Hey there- how did your next print go? These things are definitely a learning process so it's lots of trial and error to figure it out. The curling sounds like temperature issues. The missing parts of the print sounds like slicing issues which is either your software or the model you were printing. One thing that helped me troubleshoot in the very beginning is to have one quick design that you successfully printed and go back to that when you have something wonky happen. Mine was a little 10 minute triangle pendant. When I had a mystery issue I'd try that print. If it went well then I knew it was the model or the settings I was using and not the printer. If it doesn't work you know it's a leveling/filament/hardware issue. Let us know how it's going.

[curious aardvark]

Clean the bed
re-calibrate
Change to makerware
try again :-)

I can't honestly think of a less user friendly piece of software than rep-g. Also it's glacially slow in slicing. And the raft sucks and is a bugger to remove. And it has generally all round crap-ness.

Makerware wise - don't get the latest desktop. That's almost as bad as repg.

You want the older makerware.

Actually you want simplify3d - but start with makerware.
Hmm, someone might have to upload a version to this forum - seems to have disappeared from the makerbot website. Bastards lol

[Geoff]

I have the last few versions of makerware if anyone needs it.

I deleted makerware desktop and got a refund for my model purchases off them (the endevaour ship)

I wish them nothing short of ebola.

[Ghosty]

geoff im running makerware desktop, can you send me a link for just makerware

[soofle616]

Sorry, forgot I had posted this. So an update, I wiped the bed down with some rubbing alcohol and in the process noticed that there was a nasty scratched up spot on my kapton tape. New stuff is on the way but won't be here until monday. In the meantime I was able to get a copy of the latest pre-desktop makerware from a helpful forum member and got that installed. WAY better interface and hugely faster slicing. Tried the part again and it printed just fine (I did move it off to the side to avoid the scratched up part of the tape). I've since run three or four more small parts with no additional issues. I'm very seriously considering simplify3d based on it's feature set and the reviews I've seen of it but that's probably going to wait for a bit. Didn't bother to recalibrate, level the plate, or anything else before I tried to reprint (again, seeing how far I can push things) and so far so good. I'm honestly really pleasantly surprised at how many good prints I'm getting without any real problems. I was expecting more trial and error before I started making usable parts. Today I was even able to print out a splined collar I had drawn up as a tolerance test part. Actual dimensions were off by 1-1.3% of the model so not horrible and the variance was quite consistent so I'm relatively sure I can compensate for it and get parts that are damn close to 100% accurate or at least within an acceptable range of tolerance.

[curious aardvark]

if you're using pla then the measurements should be spot on.

Abs shrinks by 1% from the extruded volume.

I'm just printing a part I originally printed in abs. It's got toleareances down to several hundredths of a mil - I'm currently in love with pla - so reduced the size by 1% and keeping fingers crossed.

But everything I've printed with pla has been absolutely bang on the model dimensions.

Geoff swears it's makerware that resizes things. But Ive used it for the same parts in pla and abs and only the abs shrinks in my workshop.

[Geoff]

Geoff swears it's makerware that resizes things. But Ive used it for the same parts in pla and abs and only the abs shrinks in my workshop.

And as I said literally 6 times now we are running different firmware. I am running sailfish v1.0. Because it works, doesn't give me problems and Repg and Makerware both work well (with the exception of the scaling issue)

I am making hundreds of printer parts a day... all of them need to be test fitted with Hot ends, Aluminum extrusions etc. As I said, with v1.0 of the firmware on an old flashforge, Makerware for some inxexplicable reason rescales everything down slightly.

Now this wouldnt normally matter and you wouldn't notice, but when a 15mm extrusion has to slide into a Kossel foot - it cannot be even 0.02% too small or it will not fit. I learned the hard way, otherwise I wouldnt bother saying anything at all.

[soofle616]

if you're using pla then the measurements should be spot on.

Abs shrinks by 1% from the extruded volume.

I'm just printing a part I originally printed in abs. It's got toleareances down to several hundredths of a mil - I'm currently in love with pla - so reduced the size by 1% and keeping fingers crossed.

But everything I've printed with pla has been absolutely bang on the model dimensions.

Geoff swears it's makerware that resizes things. But Ive used it for the same parts in pla and abs and only the abs shrinks in my workshop.

Ah-ha! so that's it. Guess I need to get me some PLA and see what happens. Any insight into other materials? I'm really incredibly interested in t-glase PET for an integrated taillight project I'm working on. Tolerances on that aren't really critical at all but it would be nice to know ahead of time what I'm in for.

And as I said literally 6 times now we are running different firmware. I am running sailfish v1.0. Because it works, doesn't give me problems and Repg and Makerware both work well (with the exception of the scaling issue)

I am making hundreds of printer parts a day... all of them need to be test fitted with Hot ends, Aluminum extrusions etc. As I said, with v1.0 of the firmware on an old flashforge, Makerware for some inxexplicable reason rescales everything down slightly.

Now this wouldnt normally matter and you wouldn't notice, but when a 15mm extrusion has to slide into a Kossel foot - it cannot be even 0.02% too small or it will not fit. I learned the hard way, otherwise I wouldnt bother saying anything at all.

Thanks for the clarification. I've noticed your posts about makerware re-sizing prints but never caught on about the firmware version being a factor in that.