Slacker3D

03/25/2022

Wow,
the difference between clear PLA nd clear PETG is striking!

PLA on left. PETG on right.

The PETG is far more transparent and reflective.

03/10/2022

Here it is. My most ambitious print to date. This took over 7 days to complete. Part of it, 3 + days was 2 printers day and night. The rest was one printer or the other doing a one off or a reprint. Really LEDs with a controller.

03/05/2022

It's gonna be that kind of day printing...

02/27/2022

Here is the evolution of printing PETG on the Voxelab:
Confused and frustrated.
I have a Voxelab Aquila X2. Essentially stock, other that a Bi-metal heat break. I'm trying to print PETG and I can not clear up this blobbing. Pictured below is some of the Cura retraction towers I've tested. I've varied distance and speed and can not get a significant enough difference to indicate what the problem is. My filament is not we. Note the great walls on the sides. Same thing with my temperature. Great walls. My first layer is good too. Any advice is appreciated.

02/19/2022

Initial results are in.
Vexlab printed great. Print came right up after cooling.
Only thing is some blobbing at the top of the letters. Oh, and a little stringing, but it's PETG. Look at that bottom layer!

02/19/2022

Printing PETG on the Voxelab printer for the first time. Doing a calibration cube. Wish it luck.

02/15/2022

Pan here _ When we last talked I had let go of an old friend. How does one grieve in this day and age. You buy something!
I replaced the Anet with a Voxelab Aquila X2. A good printer at a value price,

Warning, possibility of firmware that lacks thermal runaway protection. But it is straight forward to fix with an upgrade.

It is an Ender3 clone and I think ti does it well. it's a good, solid extruded frame. 220x220x250 build volume. Power is a 24 volt system so it warms up quick. it's got quality parts in it. You do have to assemble the X arm and gantry. Where it's quality lacked, only slightly, is the assembly. Some of the pre-assembled frame screws were not snugged in. I went through it and made sure all of them were tight. I built the machine their manual is good and lots of videos out there. Then while it was default I did one of their test prints and it came out beautiful. I'll post pics if there is interest. After ensuring it works I upgraded the firmware with a custom build that is out there from Alexqzd from Github. It's Marlin based and has all the features I need. Once again, if there is interest I'll detail what I found and use. I then made sure it still printed and it was working great, even without any calibration. The next thing I did was upgrade the hot end with a bi-metal heatbreak. My goal is to print PETG on this machine. Plus, now a days there is little to no reason why you shouldn't run the bi-metal. Did some test printing again and it's still performing well.

The future for the Aquila is getting it, roughly, calibrated. Then I'll try some PETG. it'll be my first time printing it on glass. I'm frightened! I'll keep you posted.

02/13/2022

Pan here.
Another chapter in my 3d adventures. This time we say goodbye to an old friend.
While getting my CR10 fix I started doing some more PETG prints on my Anet A8. The original, old, acrylic one. It has been a steadfast and dependable little printer. Granted it's never been accurate, but it has done good enough for my needs. It's perfect for project boxes and other things that don't need to look pretty.
But while doing this recent round of prints it stopped keeping it's bed level. For the last couple of years, since I put the heavier springs on the bed I haven't had to level it. But after doing a print I started a new one and the nozzle would drag on the bed. I leveled it and it would still be too low. I went through several rounds of trying to level it and then I finally gave up. I think the frame finally got weak enough that it no longer stayed aligned.
I figured it was time for it to retire. That means get tore down for parts, but I didn't tell it that. Now I had an empty spot, gotta fill it! It's been long enough and the 3d printing scene has advanced to where extruded frame printers were roughly the same price I paid for one with an acrylic frame all those years ago. It's time to replace the old one with an upgrade. I will chronicle that journey here so you can follow along.

Here is a pic of the poor ol' thing.

02/12/2022

This is so meta:

The STL to ASCII generator from Sink is a work of genius. Is uses the ASCII character set to display a viewing plane of 3d geometry. What is ASCII? H...

02/12/2022

Pan here - remember that whole bowden tube bi-metal heatbreak thing with my CR10 I was talking about? Well I remember and I'm gonna tell you about it. When I replaced the tubing I think I wasn't getting it cut right and that's why it still clogged. Recently I learned about Bi-metal heatbreaks and jumped at the chance to resolve my tube cutting issues. It did resolve the tube cutting problem. I had a known good model of a threaded cylinder threw that on the printer and bingo, it worked! I then tried slicing some things and the print would fail after 20, 30, or 40 minutes. Vase mode worked great too. What the hell? I finally realized the difference between the prints that worked and the ones that failed was retraction. The models that did not use, or had minimal retraction were fine. If they needed lots of retractions, BOOM fail!
I was not aware that you should reduce the retraction amount when you go to the bi-metal heatbreak. I got some hints by searching around the various groups and forums. Once I set it to 2mm everything started working normally.

Stay tuned. In our next chapter we loose a major character in my 3d Printer adventures.

02/11/2022

Is my PLA filament still any good? What I'm finding out.

I still have PLA filament that I bought almost 4 years ago, should I use it? I'm finding out the answer is Yes. All of the old filaments I've tried, so far, have been printing just fine. I have to add that I have the open rolls stored in (sort of) sealed containers with cheap desiccants. I have not tested all of them yet, but what I'm discovering is that they are still good and printing just fine.
One exception I've found, so far, is a roll of Solutech clear. The outside filament was brittle. Before I tried to print it, I checked and it would break easily. I started unrolling it and after several winds, a few meters it was flexible again. Why was the it brittle, no clue. Was it exposure to air? Not sure I don't think the rolls are that tight. Was it exposure to light? The rolls are in opaque containers and not exposed to direct sunlight. I'll never know.

In closing I can say that PLA can be stored for years, and no I have not dried it. I just recently watched a convincing video on that subject. I'm convinced that in my environment (US Midwest) I don't need to worry about drying PLA. PETG, that might be a different subject and we'll get to that later.

Link to the video about PLA and moisture:

Join Andrew Mayhall, lead product developer and all around chemistry whiz, and I for our ongoing conversation about moisture and what it really does to your ...

02/11/2022

It all started when my Bowden tube wore out. To replace it I upgrade to the Capricorn tubing and, while I was at it I put on an aluminum extruder. This stuff was from th3dstudio. Can't recommend those folks enough, great team. Still no luck. But everything changed when I got a Bi-metal heatbreak. It made me angrier. But that's for another update.