Sunday, August 31, 2014

Artsy thingy: check!


I guess it had to be done at some point. Artsy print, accomplished. Twisted flower vase by Yellasing.

Came out pretty good considering I had to scale it down to around 30% of the original size.

Saturday, August 9, 2014

PRINTinZ printer plate

On another note; I'm extremely pleased with the printer plate from PRINTinZ. I'm using the 140x140 mm printer plate which fits my printable area quite nicely.

The prints stick extremely well to the surface even when printing cold (PLA). Although too little clearance between the hotend and the surface might have it stick too well on thinner prints so be careful.

Failed print, not because of the printer plate though.

It is great to be able to lift out the whole printer plate instead of having to fiddle inside the printer when removing the print. Detaching the print from the plate is surprisingly easy. Instead of having to use a sharp knife you just twist and bend the plate and the print pops right off - as long as it's not too flexible.

The above part is 120mm in diameter and that's the biggest footprint I've managed to print to date. Previously the parts would always pop off before the print was done - even with a heated print-bed and using kapton or blue tape.

A funny thing is that when I removed the plate and placed it on the table, before removing the part, it was quite warped by the print. The finished part is a bit warped, but in this case it won't matter, but it's something I'll have to look into in the future.

Having dialed in the new E3D v6 hotend the new setup is starting to look quite nice - best quality prints so far :)

The quantum mechanics of 3D printers

Sometimes it would one could believe 3D printer have quantum properties. You have to actively observe it to get the expected result. Whenever you look away something goes wrong...