Reducing print time to lowest possible.

[Zhall]

I am developing a table top game (which also has a free to play digital component) that I am maximizing print time efficiency for in order to use my printers for production of the game.

I have taken the following steps to minimize print time to it's absolute lowest (while preserving acceptable quality)

• Made big game pieces hollow
• Did away with all automatic raft, replacing it with 0.2mm versions only where absolutely needed.
• Used custom support material consisting of easy to remove 1mm rods
• Used 3% infill
• Used 0.4mm layer height (this has stopped working recently)

This was all done within the parameters of Makerware...

Now I am looking into using Slic3r to optimize print time even further.

Is there a slicing profile that will absolutely give me the fastest print time while still having acceptable quality?

I am using a Makerbot Replicator 2.

Thanks

[richardphat]

0.3mm and above is starting to be a torture test, eventually the flow will be bottlenecked if you push your print speed fast. You will hear screeching from the extruder, the motor will spin but the filament might slip. Unless, you're running with a 0.7 mm or 0.5 nozzle, don't go above 0.3

0.2 and 0.25mm works fine. I can go with a speed of 75 to 100mm/s but I did take some time to calibrate the machine to maintain my standard in term of quality.

[curious aardvark]

I've printed at 0.4 with a 0.4mm nozzle, with no issues. Makerware just does it. Simplify3d winges that some parameter or other is too big, but if you ignore that it prints fine anyway. So no idea what it's complaining about.

I will say that I only use 0.4 for a quick check print. You will get lamination issues and quite frankly it looks crap.
0.3 is what i use for most things.

There is currently no real way to speed up fff style 3d printing and still maintain acceptable print quality.

With a rep 2 you should be able to print at 0.3 at 70-80mm/s quite happily.

Hollow models are good. If you're using support - redesign untill you don't need supports.
Supports and rafts slow print times down a LOT !

Adding active cooling of the print area to the printer, will let you print faster and cut down on need for supports on overhangs and curves.

Use of pla with active cooling will also allow faster lower quality prints as it warps and shrinks less than abs.

If you can get away with 3% infill, then drop infill to 0% and add an extra shell or two. Shells print much faster than infill and 3-4 shells gives a pretty strong print.
You can bridge a surprisingly large area on a hollow model. So you might be surprised what you can print without infill.

[FrankV]

There is currently no real way to speed up fff style 3d printing and still maintain acceptable print quality.

I have been working on doing just that. So far I have moved the huge mass of the two extruder steppers off to the chassis. Working quite well but now need to retune things, which is where my lack of 3D printing experience is slowing things down. Any interest in helping out? So far it has been a relatively easy task and 100% returnable to stock within a few minutes. If of any interest, will start a thread on the FF page.

Frank

[Zhall]

Unfortunately some of my pieces cannot go without raft and support, but those that can have already done away with it, at a massive time savings.

I'll try using Slic3r to print at 80 mm/s and see how it goes.

[3dkarma]

Re the cooling, make sure automated cooling is turned off in Slic3r but the fan option is set to always on. Automated cooling slows print time considerably. Multiple pieces on the bed plus active cooling will do the job.

[Zhall]

Giving that automated cooling thing a try.

Tried printing at 120 mm/s.. lets just say it didn't work.. lol

Now I set Slic3r to 3 (%) infill, but when I click on the drop down menu and simply let go, it goes to 30%.

This seems more like the case... So i'll try 5% next.

I'll take some pictures of my findings once these all print out.

[Zhall]

I did some testing with fantastic results.

I have not been able to beat Makerware in speed until now...


Production print time reduction Testing.jpg

Keeping the fan on helps significantly for things with 60+ layers... The two Slic3r prints I did at the same time, they were even until they got past layer 60, then the auto fan one started to fall behind.

Going to try testing red vs green with the planets and see how it goes.

Now to find a way to print <60 layer parts faster... May try to revive my .4 lh approach. The real issue is the first layer sticking, so I'll see what I can do to slow that layer down in Slic3r, then go bat-s#$! crazy for the rest of them.

[GOC]

...
Now to find a way to print <60 layer parts faster... May try to revive my .4 lh approach.
...

- As curious aardvark mentioned you will begin to run into layer lamination issues running a 0.4mm nozzle with a 0.4mm layer height. You don't really want to exceed 75% of your nozzle diameter, this gives your flowrate & filament diameter parameters values some control over how much pressure is applied between the layers (its ideal to have a little bit of 'squish' between layers).

- I have also found that certain filaments also affect prints speeds(filament review). I am able to print at about 65-100mm/s with PLA using a good quality filament and tuned configurations. I have a configuration file for each of my filament spools arranged by supplier & color, because different colors can also effect these configuration settings.

- I use the CuraEngine in the Repetier-Host software and found it produced better quality at the higher print speeds than slic3r did. This may be just my inability to fully tame the slic3r software, but my suggestion is to try some other pathing options to see if you can get better results at the higher print speeds.

...
The real issue is the first layer sticking, so I'll see what I can do to slow that layer down in Slic3r, then go bat-s#$! crazy for the rest of them.

- I'm not sure how savvy you are with g-code but if you are in the slightest this is an easy task to accomplish.

1. Slice and generate the gcode at the speeds you would like for the first layer.
2. Copy the layer 1 code into a text editor
3. Slice and generate the gcode at the desired print speeds for the rest of the print.
4. Replace the layer 1 code with the code saved in the text editor

* Make sure the feedrate and 'Z-Axis' transitions are copied appropriatly

[Zhall]

It would appear that printing planets too fast leaves them full of holes... I'll stick to Makerware on that one...

Off to the next optimization.