Month: January 2022

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today I am upgrading my 3D printer. Let’s get started!

In Pursuit of a Perfect Print

I really upped my 3D printing quality last week, but I still have a ways to go for so-called perfect prints. The Maker Select Plus was a good choice for its day for learning the basics of printing, but official maintenance options are lacking outside the design’s communist country of origin.

But who says my 3D printer has to remain 100% stock? It’s a time-honored tradition to use what tools you have to improve upon said tool set, and with 3D printing technology, precision parts are easier than ever to manufacture. I don’t need some company to sell me an upgrade I can make myself.

Ringing

I was advised last week that I have a ringing problem with my prints. The head and build plate on my printer each have mass. As these masses whiz around each other with high accelerations, they shift the steel frame ever so slightly in the opposite direction per Newton’s Third Law. This sends waves of energy back and forth through the whole unit and right back into the print area. Unless the slicer has some way of anticipating these waves (good luck), they’ll manifest in the print as filament is laid as ripples.

I’ve found three ways to reduce this effect: print slower, reinforce connections, and tune belts. Slowing the printer as it prints perimeters is a simple setting in PrusaSlic3r. Belts are a bit harder to access, so I won’t be covering those this week.

I located a whole series of Z-braces on Thingiverse[1]. I picked one remixed specifically for my printer (and its many, many clones) after hours of research. In addition to holding the vertical truss in place, the brackets are designed with adjustable feet so I can remove the paper soup I have been shimming my printer level with, allowing the bad vibrations to more efficiently dissipate into the table.

Printing and Error

By some amount of pure, dumb luck, I managed to print around half the pieces by volume in one go overnight: a bracket for each of the two back corners and four nut covers for up top. I’m at a loss for words for how I felt when I first handled the brackets and the flat parts came out smooth. Closer looks over the following days turned up additional flaws.

The other four pieces weren’t nearly so cooperative. The upper brackets have four holes through the first layer. Between them and the outer perimeter, each loop contributed what felt like a 50% chance of failure. I finally got a successful first layer after what felt like forever and the printer messed up one of the bits for the second bracket and I got myself a wafer to photograph. It was recommended I calibrate my flow rate – a worthy project for another time. I’d just as soon keep the quality consistent within a project. Each remaining bracket was printed individually.

The project calls for metal rods, nuts and feet, but since Monoprice shortened the screws to just barely be long enough for the stock printer, those too must be replaced. My father stopped by the hardware store to pick those up. The trip must have gone well, because they carried everything described on Thingiverse down to the exact package in some cases, such as the feet.

Installation

Read your instructions, if you’re following along. I found that each generation added a little something to the files, but cut material from the directions. I got a little mixed up.

We started by installing the feet. The instructions suggested using a press to shove them into their brackets, but my father cut them to size so they fit hand-snug. The brackets fit nicely on their respective corners, and the back ones even had a notch cut out to accommodate stuff sticking out around the power interface. The other side is mirrored.

We tried a number of things with getting the rods situated, but what I found worked best was a pattern of bottom-top-middle. Apply the first Nylok nut to the bottom of the rod and adjust it so the rod is just barely still within the bottom bracket when the nut is as deep as it can go. Add the middle nut, another Nylok, adjust it below its final position, and add a cap. Slip the rod through the upper bracket – be sure to have another cap and then a regular nut. The caps should be pointing into the upper bracket. Tighten the upper capped nut into its final position, then carefully adjust the middle nut into place. To spare your hands and the parts, you may want to grip the rod with pliers through a paper towel while twisting with another tool.

Side Project

I installed the ProjectKorra plugin for Minecraft 1.18, as it was something I’ve done before and every other project I looked into kept looking more involved than I had time for. I needed FTP access to upload it, and Filezilla was already on my laptop when I thought I’d need to either install it special or move to another workstation with it. I did, however, use Derpy to download to cold storage so I wouldn’t be streaming over the Wi-Fi and back.

Takeaway

I printed a white Benchy with an existing .stl file keyed to the other filament spool’s temperature. I had to adjust it mid-print. As for surface quality, maybe there’s a little less ringing, maybe it’s just noise. I will want to tune my printer farther in the future.

Final Question

I’m getting bored of Benchy. What are some other tests I can try?

Work Cited

[1] morjagel, “Z-Brace for Monoprice Maker Select Plus,” Thingverse.com, April 27, 2017. [Online]. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2349318. [Accessed Jan. 31, 2022].

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today I am learning a lot about the medium-grain details of printer calibration. Let’s get started!

Low Filament

My red filament is almost gone. I was considering using the rest on printer calibration tests, but when I found it broken, I went ahead and readied my white filament – the spool I have historically had a harder time with. I used my loop of cleaning filament to reach into the print head and push/pull out most of the remaining bits of red gunked up in there. I found a little red afterword, but there was surprisingly little leftover overall.

My printer’s print head works by grabbing the filament directly above the hot end, and there’s just enough room for filament to get lost during loading. I didn’t think much of it when a section of filament broke off in there. I made note, then set the printer up for several hours of operation. As of drafting this paragraph, it hasn’t caused any problems, but I’ve already researched the solution.

Temperature Tower and Mini Test

The first thing I printed was the temperature tower using the same .gcode I downloaded in a previous post. I should have the skills to slice up one for myself now thanks to playing around with the PrusaSlic3r interface, but I’ve used it before and it didn’t destroy my printer. I was expecting this filament to want it a bit warmer than 185 degrees C, but I was surprised when the only slightly warmer floor for 190 turned out the best.

I sliced up a 190 degree version of the mini all-in-one printer test. When I printed it over the central bed’s scratch, I saw a black spot in its middle of the first layer. As the build plate deformed, that must have been where the material went. Other results appeared to be on par with when I successfully printed one in red: I could read more of the test labels, but it felt brittle. The stringing test actually broke in an accident in the completed photo booth.

Benchy, the Benchmark Tugboat

I took part in a 3D maker tradition and printed Benchy, a tugboat designed with a number of challenging geometries. I’d say it came out pretty well – hardly perfect, but my untrained eye only noticed a couple major issues I took to the photo booth about. I found that I could actually use my begging-brother-special camera by letting it do whatever it wanted with auto-focus, then correcting it with a handheld magnifying glass.

I was able to post a series of pictures of Benchy in a few places on Discord and ask for help. Through feedback, I learned my most interesting issue is probably ringing. Ringing (as in like a bell) is when sudden movements cause vibrations the stupid 3D printing machine doesn’t account for. I need to print more slowly and work on a way to level my printer frame without resorting to paper soup like I am now.

My second Benchy went better overall. Per other advice, I used thinner layers and left my case open. I tried slowing the print job, but with Slic3r’s many settings and a delay in communication, I wrongly guessed that limiting long-distance speed would improve quality the most when I should have gone after perimeters instead.

The print itself has more, smaller flaws than my first. For starters, the lettering on the bottom totally failed. I got these odd bubbles over the ship deck and cabin roof. Other than that, the layers were all a whole lot smoother, there was no stringing, and a plaque on the back was clearly something –it wasn’t legible– but it didn’t look like a random mess. I also had some bubbling along the tops of the deck and the cab roof: probably steam from hydrated filament.

With my white filament sent off to the dehydrator, I printed a couple more Benchys in red. They both turned out about the same. The one where I added the front panel back in fixed one of two of the water lines, but seemingly made the other one worse.

Over on the dehydrator, my old, white filament is in for the thermal stress gauntlet. I ran it closer to the glass transition temperature than before to the point where a loop of filament sticking up collapsed under its own weight. Weighing it before and after showed no change in weight. It at least looks like I didn’t accidentally melt the whole spool. If I did, it’s tricky filament anyway. It still feels brittle, but I’ll try using it with a few larger prints as-is and see how they turn out.

Side Project

As soon as the calibration part was off the printbed, I started on a gift for my sister, Taz. She showed interest in helping with cleaning Twilight, so I made her a figure of Tails, Sonic’s two-tailed sidekick/best friend. I found an offering on Thingiverse with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. I didn’t like Knuckles’ pose, and I personally prefer Tails anyway. Later, I thought of about eight good reasons pointing out the back of Sonic’s head as to why he might be the more challenging cleanup (his quills).

I wanted Tails to have an inch of height for every foot the character is tall. Tails’ base plate was about 1/8 the height of his figure overall. I grabbed his height from the Sonic Wiki and scaled accordingly. There was no way I would be getting away without at least partially printing on the scratch, so I just left it centered.

While trying to remove unnecessary supports, it became apparent that these models can’t have been intended for anything but resin printing. Internal voids kept begging Slic3r for support material. I removed them in Blender so I could use my favorite infill setting (15% 3D honeycomb). I found another cavity for his mouth and tongue, but I felt lazy and fed him an appropriately squashed and rotated solid “sphere” object to fill his mouth instead. Thinking of infill, I knew the bottom of the baseplate would be due for some sort of modification, so I just printed it solid.

The figure came out… well, let’s just say it was a learning experience for both of us. I may have rushed the slicing a little to keep the secret. The supports were a mess. The print was plagued by this ringing phenomenon I had yet to learn about, and his arms, legs, bangs, and face/chest fluff were tiny – as well worded by Taz when she said something about literally knocking his socks off. He came out recognizable, but a larger follow up attempt is in order after I finish mastering the not-quite basics presented above. For what it’s worth, the base does have some decent heft to it.

Takeaway

I’ve already said this, but there is a lot more to 3D printing than sending it a file and hitting go. Then again, where was consumer 2D computer printing when the technology was ten years old? There’s a story in my family about someone rewriting a pen plotter driver to cross hatch using long lines instead of filling each x individually. Likewise, people are still innovating like crazy before the technology is locked down to the point where it’s baby-proofed so much a first grader can work it without prior 1st hand experience, supervision, or even so much as an explanation.

There is fun to be had while it lasts, but there is a learning curve to climb beforehand. Proper diagnostics are key, otherwise I’m blaming everything on old filament.

Final Question

What is the most challenging tool you ever taught yourself to calibrate?

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today, I am on my 3D printer again for round 2 of printing a model of Twilight Sparkle. Let’s get started!

Preparation

I began with a fresh download into a clean project directory I designated. The “fixed” version from last time simply fused all the little details I wanted to delete/paint on later into one single model. I instead continued work with the unfixed version [1].

Like before, I used Blender to digitally clear out Twilight’s eyelashes and stitch her mouth shut. I really wanted to try printing her mane pieces separately so I could glue them on later, but I can’t Blender well enough to make that happen.

Over in Slic3r, I scaled the model up by half an inch from front to back. This made her feel a lot bigger, but not so big I was in too much danger of running out.

I played with paint on support blockers a bunch, but I found they weren’t as versatile as I would have liked. I found myself working more with the more geometrically themed blocks. Of note, I added one to the tight space between her mane and neck and a cylindrical one between her mane and forehead. As I finalized each block, I made sure to inspect the individual overhang layers to make sure they would bridge properly.

With the bigger model, I had to override the program into using solid infill for those fragile legs. The selection box was the same as the support blocker. I also told it to make Twilight’s unicorn horn solid at the base, even though it would have been fine with her mane intersecting it (another reason not to print head pieces separately).

As one final touch, I moved Twilight off to the side and removed her raft so the scratch in the build plate would only affect the support material.

Printing and Cleanup

Printing went smoothly. I checked in once an hour until she was done. The PVC pipe I’m using to extend the filament rack fell out again, but fortunately it didn’t cause any issues as I observed during a calibration print. This print used most of the rest of my spool of red PLA filament; it’s just starting on the second to last layer. I have a smaller print or two left, but that’s it.

Removal of the support material took about as long as last time – a full day plus a bit. This time, I tried to be more careful about her mane, and it paid off. Twilight did not suffer any ill effects for missing a few supports here and there. I even caught myself laying fingers on fragile bits while trying to get leverage on stuck bits elsewhere before I broke anything.

Despite the model being scaled up a little, cleanup wasn’t much easier overall. The cutters/needle nose pliers couldn’t reach as far between her legs, but I can get both those parts with sandpaper. The mane was as obtuse with me as before, but after a while, I managed to use a repurposed sewing needle and a bit of tie wire to leverage a corner to where I could get in there with the pliers. It felt so good getting that bit out, but I cracked the lock of her mane hanging off to the right. I want to print up some test pieces and practice repair techniques before continuing work on the real one.

Notes for Future Prints

If I make another attempt after this one, I may follow the fixed version’s cue and fuse all disjoint model pieces before exporting from Blender to Slic3r (over a .stl file). My hope is that Slic3r won’t get as confused with intersecting geometries as found in her mane.

In all reality, I should be thankful these prints are cleaning up as well as they are. The proper tool for the job is either a resin 3D printer –which can manage finer details– or an FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) printer with an extra head dedicated to a dissolvable support material so I can be done with cleanup in minutes instead of hours. For now, the tool I have has a single printhead for a single filament, and that means tricky supports.

But tricky supports can stick. Both Twilight prints had issues with stuck bits under their manes, bellies, and to a lesser extent: their tails. The bottom layer of those respective regions appears to be peeling away with the interface material, so it takes a bit extra force – exactly the thing you don’t want around delicate parts like legs. While I was discussing this on the Sweetie Bot Project Discord server, user Equestria_dynamics suggested “increasing the contact layers between the print and the actual support material [2].”

Side Project

What fun is it to make all sorts of fun stuff if you can’t share it? You’d be surprised how hard that can be without access to a smartphone you’re willing to use (more on that in a future post when I install AOSP). Special thanks to my sister for loaning me her Nikon S3000 digital camera from around the time she got a smartphone. It’s mostly unused, but the charger was missing. I tracked one down and we ordered it up.

This camera is good for beginners and begging brothers. My impression is that it was aimed at people who understand the concept of point and shoot, but prioritize pictures fitting on a card over lossless compression methods. Read: I want .png and spent hours confirming it only does .jpg.

To get the best quality pictures I can of my prints, I’ve decided to get myself a photo booth. For an early prototype, my father laid some large sheets over his workbench and topped that with some parchment paper so the content on the other side wouldn’t show through. Presently, we’re making a second, more permanent version out of a cardboard box with some creative cutting.

Takeaway

As with any piece of software, Slic3r is taking time to learn. Having to learn a whole segment of the workflow all at once makes it take a bit longer, but I look forward to being able to show my stuff off in a more controlled manor than snapshots with random bits of house in the background.

Final Question

Have you ever glued delicate parts back together on a 3D print? What glue worked out for you?

Works Cited

[1] dragonator, “Mane 6 models MLP:FIM,” Thingverse.com, April 09, 2012. [Online]. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:21076. [Accessed Jan. 17, 2022].

[2] E. dynamics, Sweetie Bot Project. [Discord] #3d-printing, (Jan. 14, 2022).

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today I am continuing to work with my 3D printer. I’m covering a lot of ground this week, so let’s get started!

.Gcode Flavor

I left off last week wondering what was with my printer cooling its head when I had already preheated it through firmware. I reached out to various help channels until I randomly speculated that my printer was speaking a slightly different dialect than what PrusaSlic3r was feeding it. A helpful user suggested I switch my .gcode flavor to Marlin (listed as Marlin (legacy) in Slic3r).

I compared outputs from the two flavors after slicing the same object. The two files were similar, but legacy machines like mine –it would seem– do best with some additional information before any custom .gcode a user might want.

In retrospect, I probably should have learned to make my own temperature tower. Running .gcode meant for a larger printer can cause any one from a number of problems. At the same time, I’m glad I printed the tower with raw .gcode or else I might have easily given up.

Calibration Park

Armed with an optimal or near-optimal printing temperature, I set about printing a calibration multi-test [1]. I came back part way through the print and found that a PVC pipe I use to extend the filament holder had fallen off and both the X and Y had been gotten way off (I’m just glad it wasn’t on a more serious print). Additionally, the base was warped something awful. The test was still stuck to the printbed, but it was almost trivial to remove. I figured my bed was too low, which it was, but it took me until I noticed my heated bed turning off after the first layer that I had a setting wrong in Slic3r.

I was able to save my second serious attempt at the test by manually adjusting the temperature from my printer’s touchscreen. It turned out pretty well after that. The scratch in the middle of the bed was obvious, and a lot of the fine details in the lettering describing each test were lost. Otherwise, everything appeared to do OK at the very least. The overhang test was technically still together at the 80 degree inclination, but artifacts were beginning to show up by around 45 degrees. Most importantly: the large artifacts I had when unknowingly printing with wet filament were fixed.

Planning a Complex Print

To date, the most complex print I’ve successfully probably pulled off would have to be my Blinkie Pie case, where I modified a PacMan ghost case so a camera could see out one eye. Aside from a little impossible bridging that quickly evened itself out, that wasn’t a difficult print. But the world of 3D printing is much more diverse than variations on simple shapes.

I decided to try printing a model of unicorn Twilight Sparkle — both for her (percieved) relative simple geometry compared to her friends and so I wouldn’t have to risk her potentially breakable wings as seen across most of the show. I found a model on Thingverse after looking at several different places that wouldn’t let me download without creating an account — free or otherwise [2].

I went back and forth with it between Slic3r and Blender a time or two to refine Twilight’s model. While skimming through the planned layers, I noticed she had a sizable oral cavity. Her tongue and teeth were simple enough to delete, but it took a bit more patience to remove the rest of her mouth and stitch it back together. Somewhere in there I got rid of her eye lashes, which were also separate meshes from her main model as I was sure they would be hardly there to begin with and likely would be damaged while removing support material.

Speaking of support material, I knew from the beginning that I wasn’t getting away without a bunch of it. Twilight’s mane has a number of spots that hang down from layers printed later – let alone her tail as it arches up, backwards, and not quite to the ground. I messed with the automatic settings until I had what looked like a minimal amount of support, but after seeing the results of the overhang test, I put the settings back up. I also ordered up a raft three layers thick to cover up the scratch in the middle of my build plate.

Another concern I had was what Twilight’s center of mass was going to look like. At one point, Slic3r had her tail slotted for mostly solid infill with her head at 15% honeycomb infill. While I was able to find a solution involving analyzing the sliced figure with a Blender plugin, I ended up scaling Twilight up to about four inches as opposed to about three/three and a half – big enough so her tail was also rendered as a shell with infill, but small enough that her legs were solid.

A closer inspection of some supports gave me the distinct impression that Slic3r was being silly. The most complicated part of Twilight’s geometry is her mane, and there were more than a few tiny “overhangs” I figured would be fine being bridged instead of supported. I found some support blocker cubes I could move and scale, but it was clunky and there’s a better system for painting on supports I’ll be looking into next week. I wasn’t the happiest with the results I had, but I printed it anyway.

Cleanup and Repair

Between six and seven hours later, I had a pony standing on my build plate rendered in my recovered red filament. Cleanup started quickly as I cut away large sections where I knew there wasn’t anything, but as I got closer in, needle nose pliers and cutters were getting to be a little too awkward. My father arranged for a poker fashioned from some construction grade tie wire often used for holding re-bar in place while pouring concrete structures. Even then, it was a bit thick to fit in all the needed places. My mother offered a sewing straight pin which was versatile, but bowed more easily.

I quickly became jealous of dual+ head printers that can possibly use a soluble filament for easy support removal. It was a major morale boost when I was finally able to free Twilight’s face. Other tough spots included the arch of her tail, The tight spots between her legs and up across her belly, several tight spots in her mane, and the raft stuck to her hooves. I am very glad I scaled her up as much as I did.

There were a few moments when I wasn’t as careful as I should have been. I broke Twilight’s right back leg below her hock (the ankle-like joint most of the way up her leg) about half way through, and snapped her mane a few times in a couple places. Sections across her belly had to be cut away.

Despite the missing leg, there remains a piece just behind Twilight’s front legs. I had a feeling from the beginning that the supports between her forehead and bangs wouldn’t be coming out and they haven’t. At this point, I’d need to melt a handle to the remaining support material and carefully yank. The toughest holdout is physically trapped between her neck and the bit of her mane hanging to the side. I’ve already chipped the tip of her mane there trying to get it out.

I had already decided that I’d be reslicing and reprinting – I just haven’t yet. However, it doesn’t feel right to leave this Twilight without at least reattaching her leg and doing what we can with her mane. My father and I worked on the remaining bits of raft with a razor stuck to her hooves and used some superglue. The first repair on her mane didn’t go the best, so we’re using some painter’s tape to hold it in place. The leg was more promising, so at least she can stand while she waits. Maybe I’ll come back to her when I have more skill, but for now, this model has served as a learning experience so my next print should go better.

Side Project

I accidentally closed my main FireFox window. Normally that’s annoying, but since there was an update cued, I managed to destroy it completely in my attempts to recover it. I checked around online and learned a little about how Firefox stores saved sessions and I found a backup from not quite two weeks ago. It’s not perfect, but I’ll take 96% restoration over nothing!

Takeaway

3D printing is an art form, even if you’re printing other people’s .stl files. There are many factors to adjust to keep your printer in top condition. Slicing programs require knowledge about your printer’s tolerances to use effectively. Even if it prints correctly, you may want to sand, prime, and paint it.

Final Question

Have you ever set aside a work-in-progress for when you’re better equipped to finish it?

Works Cited

[1] majda 107, “*MINI* All In One 3D printer test,” Thingverse.com, Feb. 25, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2806295. [Accessed Jan. 3, 2022].

[2] dragonator, “Mane 6 models MLP:FIM,” Thingverse.com, April 09, 2012. [Online]. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:21076. [Accessed Jan. 3, 2022].

[2*] David, “Mane 6 models MLP:FIM – Fixed,” Thingverse.com, June 19, 2012. [Online]. Available: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:25282. [Accessed Jan. 3, 2022].

* The second [2] hosts the same models but “fixed” variants. I don’t know for sure which version I used, but I’m slightly more sure than not that I used the 21076 models.