Did a practical print this afternoon: 5.25" floppy storage box. For some reason they're hard to find these days(!) I fancy printing this one, too: ...but should probably wait until I get some transparent PLA for the lid.
Someone is working on a printable top hat in the elegoo facebook group: Looks like they've just extended a riser design to make room. Pretty smart.
I've found a couple of others on Elegoo's own thingiverse-clone, Nexprint. But they don't look as nice as that one.
Doing a five-hour print - a long boi for the youngest, with some matte rainbow PLA she chose. EDIT: Long boi is long. Pleased with that: no brim, no raft, just printed as-is.
First attempt with a resin printer… Surprised it worked first time. Definitely a few things to work out: I had the anti-aliasing set to “sharpen”, which I’ve since learned is not the setting I want; and I think it cured for too long, since some of the fine details have gone a bit… “crunchy”… Yes, I did print the other arm - I just haven’t glued it on . I can see what people mean about water-washable resin being brittle. It was a real pig to remove the support material, and it absolutely did not want to come off the print bed. I’m printing another version of this model now, one that’s been scaled up and is not pre-supported. Also: messy. Very messy.
At first, I thought "man, those layer lines are frikkin huge, I thought resin printers were supposed to be good at high detail". Then I saw your thumb.
I cannot for the life of me to get supports to work properly. I have no idea why. Unsupported things will print fine - look at that snake, it's great. But when I try to use supports, they don't work properly: the outer wall doesn't stick to the supports, I can see it flapping around, and as a result the first layer on top of the supports is all weird and loose and broken. Then it prints a couple of layers on top and calls it done - and it looks like an absolute dog's dinner. No idea what the problem is with that. I think I might have to try FlashForge's hacked-about version of Orca Slicer, but that means finding one of the Windows laptops...
Designed myself a key to the plastic recycling bin, my own bedside bin, and a custom poop chute! I forgot how fun, and quick, it is to design things!
Attempt #2 with resin prints. Scaled these models up by 50% this time, though I should have left them smaller to get a better comparison. Can still see some layer lines, but honestly I struggle to see it without a camera zooming right in. Still more tweaking in Lychee, methinks. I do want to try some different resin though. I’ve heard/read that water washable resins can be quite brittle, and I’m definitely seeing that. Supports are a pig to remove, and models tend to either want to “ping” off the build plate or the raft chips. Primaris Space Marine for scale
One trick I've seen is to use a hot air gun - apparently it warms the resin enough to make support removal easier. Also, remove supports before you cure, it decreases the risk of chip out where the support was.
I do have a heat gun, and warm water is something else I’ve seen mentioned for support removal . I do remove supports before final curing, but taking the supports off the model wasn’t necessarily the main issue: the bit I struggle with the most is removing the raft from the bed. Definitely helps having a raft with a lip, lets you get a scraper under it more easily. But I do want to try an “ABS-like” resin. It’s supposed to be a lot more flexible, at the possible cost of some detail. I’ve also got some clear non-water-washable resin here which I want to try out. Something else I’ve seen reported a lot is that the water-washable stuff can end up being quite brittle. And it doesn’t help much with post-processing: although you’re not using a shedload of isopropyl alcohol, you’ve still got a load of resin-contaminated water that you have to dispose of properly.
@Bloody_Pete - Anyone that ever listened to 'Sheik Yerbouti' and reads 'poop chute' starts singing it. Anyone want to waste some time and money beta testing one of my monstrosities? Finding time to print big stuff is impossible with all my renovations. I warn you it's built around imperial screws and thread inserts, a black ice 120x2 radiator, and ddc pump.
We had a pipe threading machine at the pit and we only ever cut UNC and BSW on it. I still don't know why but the 55 deg Whitworth dies chewed up more pipe than they threaded. I ****ing hated using that machine.
Finally getting the loose disks around the office sorted: Don't need to be able to do overhangs or supports to print these! Did two individual ones at 0.2mm layer height as I was finishing off a spool of PLA, then did three at once at 0.3mm - they look a little rougher, but they work fine and it cut the print time down from about 5h30m to 3h40m.
No takers then? I was wrong. This one is built around a Swiftech 140x2. Also the res tube is 2.5 INCH with an 1/8 inch wall... There's space behind and under the motherboard for wires. ITX with full size video card and SFF psu. Purple and brown and the pump top would be the trickiest prints. A 22mm switch goes in the hole in the top back panel. 6x2 mm magnets hold the fans on. I've drawn up a 90 degree pipe sanding jig too. I mean, you might be able to use metric inserts since the heat insert system would brute force anything to spec.
@Byron C , have you done those miniature prints before with an FDM printer too? How did they come out? Got any examples? I'm looking at printing some on mine, wondered what sort of settings you used if you did. Just doing some upgrades first. ... and fix the fact it has now started failing mid print... - Also - has anyone upgraded an older printer that runs at 12v to 24v? I'm researching it for mine, gives me more options for upgrading the fans/hotend etc Just need to decide on a suitable power supply that fits in the base and get my head around the heated bed voltage issue once i've got into the research a bit more.
