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].