put this at the start of each post
Conrad Electronic UK
Europe's leading electronic specialists now in the UK
Today I wanted to see how the Sumpod would do with a long print. Airtripper (Mark) very kindly pointed out where in Skeinforge I could change the settings to print multiple copies. Its under Craft, then multiply. For the direction, to print more from left to right you use rows and for front to back, columns.
It was simplicity itself so I loaded up the file and changed the number of rows to 3 and started a print with fingers crossed. It laid down the three copies and went on to print them out. The total print time was 3 hours 35 minutes. One problem however was just 20 minutes from the end I was running out of filament! So I quickly measured up another colour to make sure it was the same diameter and tried supergluing them together. The princciple behind my idea was the new filament would push through the remaining, giving me enough...or so I hoped. But it wouldn't work. So I thought I would heat one end and that worked.
-
- Blue filament ‘pushing’ through the previous yellow filament
-
- The first three brackets printed out
The new filament pushed through and the print was completed. I left it for a couple of hours, doing other things, and went back to have another go. The first part of two of the tool holder brackets I was producing were in yellow before the blue took over and continued without pause. The print was a success except for one of the tool holders had started to warp. However it has given me something to think about since the other two did not so it may be a case of position and the table covering rather than anything else. On both prints the first one warped whereas the other 4 did not. Interesting results.
I must move forward on fitting the SD card because tying up the laptop for so long it not acceptable. Indeed, if as some 3D printers have done, print overnight, then using it from a memory card seems the only was forward.
Very successful printing day and the SumPod printed well for over 7 hours.
If strength is not an issue, sometimes placing holes in the side of the model can help to avoid warping. Less material to shrink.
An imperfection in the build base could prevent a build from sticking, and allowing it to warp. That might explain why some items warped while others didn’t. A sloping build bed can also cause problems with lack of sticking leading to warping.
I accept what you say and have made design changes to accomodate a better result. It may however, be a more complecated issue that has different variables such as filament manufacturer, quality and colour. I say colour since I have produced one bracket to the same design after changing filament. I used another colour (red) from the pack and it produced one with no warping and in the same bed place.
I then printed a larger (admittedly thinner) item in Red with a really good finish. The best quality so far!
Whilst not a scientific based result I do believe that colour may have something that at least, makes differences. Anyone else out there have supporting/unsupporting evidence?