Post your 3D printing questions and together we’ll try to find a solution. It could be a question about the hardware, filament or why your print is looking like shit, etc. Also I plan to pull the questions and the solution of the commonly asked questions up here so that it serves as a reference in the future. For now I have some sample questions, that I think might be useful.
Q: How do you get clean prints with PETG?
With Direct Drive Setup
A: Posted by @Agniusm on the other forum
Image from one of his posts on the other forum.
With Bowden Setup
To be updated
Q: How do different Filaments Compare?
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Q: What do you set your line width to be?
I have always used cura and it sets the line width = nozzle dia. Recently I was going through the slicer settings that @Agniusm had shared a long time ago on the other forum and found that he was using line width > nozzle dia. Upon researching it, I found it’s pretty common to set the line width to 120%-150% of nozzle dia. I’ll give it a shot and see what it does it terms of reducing goopiness.
- https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/6965/why-is-it-conventional-to-set-line-width-nozzle-diameter
- https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/5zxj1z/should_line_width_always_nozzle_size/
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I have some suggestions
VREF tuning
Step tuning
Physical maintenance/problem solving
Stepper drivers alternatives
Water cooling!
Enclosures
Nylon & exotic filaments
Octoprint
Nozzle choice
S/W: Cura, Fusion, Repetier & Slic3r etc
F/W: Marlin, SmoothieWare, Duet, Sailfish etc
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How to convince the wife you “need” a 3d printer?
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Any reason followed by, “Baby, it’s only $180 shipped.”
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I wish that price was true for me…but that ain’t happening in Canada
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Exotic Materials
Where to start with exotic materials? The more exotic in general the more of a pain they are to print with. The hotter the bed and nozzle temp needs to be the more susceptible to small changes in ambient temperature. For instance, it seems like it wouldn’t make a difference but having your printer near a door will cause drafts to effect your print if the door opens. For this reason an enclosure is absolutely crucial to getting good results with exotic materials, in fact I would suggest an enclosure as the first upgrade anyone makes to their printer, this will help you to achieve consistent results with any material.
Most exotic materials are abrasive materials, Carbon Fibre or glass fibre infused materials will wear your extruder down very fast if you are not prepared for them. Ruby tipped nozzles and hardened steel extrusion gears are needed to keep things working nicely.
Material choice for Esk8
I see a lot of discussions here about 3d printing for esk8 and what material is best. A lot of people think PLA = weak but this is not the case; its actually a very strong material with a high tensile strength but suffers from low durability and shatters easily. Also PLA has a low glass temperature which means that it will melt and deform easily in a hot car or room. This, in my opinion, makes PLA almost useless for our applications and is why I discourage its use in electric skateboard parts. I have used many materials in the past across lots of applications and I will give a list bellow with my thoughts
PLA - deforms easily and shatters even easier, stay away for anything other than decorative pieces
PET - A great material choice for many applications, its strong and tough and can be easily printed on almost any printer. This makes it an ideal candidate.
ABS - Horrible environmentally unfriendly material, warps very easily during printing but is strong. Enclosure needed
Nylon - Absolutely excellent material, for me the holy grail of printing materials. Complies slightly (will flex) and is incredibly strong - I print 90% of my functional parts in Nylon. Difficult to print requiring high temperatures. Glossy finish. Enclosure needed
PC - Polycarbonate is also a fantastic material to use, incredibly strong and durable, can be difficult to print, enclosure needed
TPU - excellent material for flexible parts, 3d cross infill at low infill settings creates spongy material. Great for gaskets and protectors.
Print settings
For Esk8 applications I recommend a minimum of 60% infill. I print any drivetrain components only in Nylon, at 100% infill. Most of your print strength comes from the number of walls, always print a minimum of 3 walls, I normally do 6 if I am not doing 100% infill.
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I like what you said about the wall thickness. Often times I find myself increasing the wall thickness rather then upping the infill. Not only it increases your print strength but it saves you a little on filament. I also agree with you on drivetrain prints, I can’t trust an print made with less then 100% infill and 3+ on walls on drivetrains. CNC Kitchen did a well thought out video on strengths between infills and wall thickness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmEaNAwFSfI
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Weird question but does your wife enjoy baths? I made this for my wifes bath addiction. Justified me getting a second printer when lots of people wanted to buy them. She even paid for it with money made from the bubble baskets!
You can print lots of kids toys too. Big plastic blocks, puzzles, and figures.
I’m 37 hours into this print of a perpetual marble machine
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Those are nicely made but sadly no. My wife had me make a shower with 7 shower heads in place of the bath. I think my main problem to convincing her is that the price in cdn counterbalances everything I come up with
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If you keep an eye out, you can usually find Ender 3s pop up for $160 usd on eBay or random tech sites. Both of mine have been rock solid. It’s sooooo worth it. Birthday present!
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Woah, I am curious to see what it looks like.
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My PETG prints with the sunulu filament($25) comes out great:
Recently I found a cheaper $16 filament and decided to give it a try. Turns out it’s actually stronger than the Sunulu one, but I am having a tough time getting clean prints out of it. I do believe it’s all in the settings, but that belief is slowly going down the drain. Haha.
It starts out great:
But slowly filaments sticks to the nozzle and it ends up shitty:
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This gives me hope. I had a nightmare printing petg. It would rather stick to the nozzle than the rest of my print. Maybe it was a bad roll. I need to try again.
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Yeah PETG took me a good 12 hours to dial in.
My issue was my printer was cooling it too fast.
I have a CR 10s so its it’s similar to the Ender 3
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Also avoid using a glass bed, or use something in between the print and bed to avoid it ruining your print surface.
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I’m new to the 3d printing world. But that here was my first print.
Does anyone know a good brand for white pla?
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Ive been using Hatchbox white PLA with awesome results, you could also try PLA plus
