Calibrate, Calibrate, Calibrate...and then Calibrate!

Is There Such a Thing as an "Out of the Box Printer"?

I am assuming that when you buy a 3D printer that advertises an out of the box experience that you don't need to calibrate said printer?  I wonder.   I know of someone who got a demo high end printer, one of the resin based units capable of super high precision, and they never got it to work.  If a printer in the 10-20K pounds can not work then I would be interested to know if paying a couple thousand quid really does get you a true out of the box experience with all the details and bridging and dimensional accuracy working at one?


Expect some Calibration to be Needed

In any case, I did not expect this with the Wanhao and so have not been surprised to be spending quite a bit of time perfecting its output.  I am also looking for a pretty high standard and have some challenging requirements that entail a lot of bridges.  Bridges being what really challenges a printer like either of mine.

In fairness to the printer most of the time that I have spent frustrated has been with Simplify 3D which continues to battle me for supremacy.   Once I got the software talking to the hardware I was able to make some pretty much right out of the box prints that were of pretty darn good quality.  In fact I have a little test print that I have been doing that came out of the box looking about as good as the one from my Prusa I3 and was printed in almost half the time.


Calibration for General Quality and Bridging

At the moment I think that the printer is pretty well calibrated for general quality (as opposed to dimensional accuracy which is next).    The major changes that I made to the defaults given by Simplify 3D were:

1. Set ABS to 210C and PLA to 185C as the lowest temperatures where filament would still be extruded reliably (I can probably go a little lower on my both temperatures but I am concerned that Sailfish undershoots so badly on downward changes....and....I have been having trouble getting Simplify 3D to handle multiple changes).   If I were able to go lower the need for the fan is postponed.
2. Adjusted bridge parameters to 
1. Extrude less plastic (50%) 
2. Move much more slowly (10%) than default.
3. Increased perimeters rather than gap fill for thin walls (better bridges on those thin walls).
3. Increased the minimum time on a layer to 20 seconds.
4. Added a fan highly directed at the print area (more on this in a later post).

I am pretty happy with my output quality.   Particularily with the ABS side.   This is somewhat ironic as on my Prusa I3 the reverse was true though a lot of that had to do with the Prusa I3 being an open printer and just not (IMHO) setup for ABS temperatures.

My next calibration challenge will tackle dimensional accuracy.   The printer currently fails even the easiest dimensional accuracy test so some work lies ahead.

Images of Selected Calibration Prints

This was printed right after I unpacked the printer.   The only adjustments that were needed were some slightly lowered print temperatures given this is PLA and the temps suggested by Simplify 3D seemed way to high.

Bridge testing.   The two on the left are while calibration was in process and the one on the right is where things have been left for the moment.

This is a bridging torture test and from the top and side it looks ok but is still a bit of a stringy mess from below.   I am thinking my next generation fan may help here.   More about fans in a later post.

This is a post calibration version of my test print.   I tossed the first one that I did for some reason.  I am pretty happy with the quality though the tiny little droop on the bridge is really not needed and the top of the circle cutout is also a little messy.   Again, fan improvements are calling out.

These prints illustrate the difference that a fan can make as well as the difference between 0.2 and 0.1 layer heights.   Marvin on the left is 0.2 layer height without a fan.  His neighbor in the center is the same layer height and has the fan running.  Marvin on the left is 0.1 layer height and also had the fan running.

Print Bonding - The Build Platform and the First Layer

Getting prints to bond to the build platform, to not pop off under way, and to not curl and warp can be a challenge.


Glass as a Build Platform

One of the reasons that I bought the Wanhao was for the glass build platform.  Glass presents it's own problems, which I will discuss, but has a crucial advantage of letting you print objects with a perfectly clean face (like the front of an LCD Case).   I am not sure how you would get that with tape and the borders you must have.  I also don't like the idea of taping and re-taping.   I would rather just clean and wipe.

I feel that the only real downside of glass, once you get adhesion right, is that you do lose a little print area due to clips.   I have read that some people use thermal bonding stuff to basically glue the glass to the metal platform but I was not going to go that route.   What I did was craft a little clip that minimizes the loss of platform, and is easy to move from the X to the Y side depending if you absolutely need to max out one side or the other.   The clip,  shown below, takes about 10mm out of the build platform (5mm on each side).

Here are some photos of the parts including the original clip before it met my Dremel.   The original clip is an 8-12mm wiring retainer clip.  The printed piece serves two purposes.  First as a spacer to keep a consistent overlap onto the platform (consistent as in smallest).  The second being that it makes it easier to grab the clip.

My clips are not as tight as a binder clip but I have not found that to be an issue.

Search for "Newlec Edge Beam Clip. For 8mm - 12mm Grip, 10mm - 11mm diameter"

That First Layer

The Wanhao D4S is more sensitive to that first layer than my old printer but only in the sense that I am printing by default at a much higher resolution than I would on my old printer.  New default is .2 and my old default was .3 and sometimes as high as .36.   The old printer was less fussy because it could afford to be!    To print at any resolution you need a good first layer but to print at .1 you need a great first layer.


Platform Leveling

The first part of the answer is to be really finicky about platform leveling.  There is a happy medium between squashing the filament on to the bed to the point where you have a little ridge around the edges to where you don't squash it down and the print pops off the platform!  The ideal case is that you get really good at judging clearance using the piece of paper technique.

The other thing that can help is to download one of the print leveling tools on Thingiverse.  The ones that I mean are the little squares (four corners and middle).  If you print one layer of these squares you can easily see how level your platform is.   I find that you can also watch the print in progress and make some tiny adjustments on the fly.


Clean the Platform, and then, Clean it Again

Before you print anything, including the leveling squares mentioned above, you need a clean build platform.  Obviously if you are using tape then you need, at some point, fresh tape!   I am using glass so will talk about that surface.   I clean mine occaisionally with fine steel wool.   First with acetone and glass cleaner.   Then steel wool again.  Then glass cleaner again.  At this point it is pretty clean!


Goop the Platform

Once the platform is clean it needs a surface preparation that leaves a thin film on the glass for first layer bonding.  I use two treatments with ABS Goop for ABS and Hairspray for PLA.

There are a lot of recipes for ABS Goop out there but I just take a half bottle of acetone and toss in some ABS filament.  A fair amount but 'def not the 1/3 that I have read some people as using.  I then apply to a luke-warm bed using a paper towel and a couple of circular motions. I try to avoid going over the same area more than twice as it should not need it and you don't want either to wipe off what was already put down, or put too much down.   It should look like there is a little haze on the glass.   Here is a photo of a glass plate that has been treated and then used for some prints.

You might note from the overlap that multiple prints, from multiple sessions, have been done from the same cleaning and gooping.  I just arrange where the subsequent prints will go to keep them from overlapping on top of an area that has been de-gooped from a previous print.

On the hairspray side it has to be noted that not all hair spray is created equal.   I have found that "L'Oreal Elnett Hairspray So Sleek Extra Strength" works great while "

Schwarzkopf Supersoft Fixing Hairspray Ultra Strong 250ml

" did not work at all.   Not sure why and have not looked at the ingredients to understand.  The downside of hairspray is that it can be messy.   I have tried to limit this by creating the below applicator.   To be honest I have not used this as of the writing as I am out of hair spray!

As you can probably tell it is part of a cardboard box that snuggly fits the Wanhao build platform with a 3D printed part to help guide the hairspray into the box.   I will update this post next week when I have more hair spray.

Finally, I am having trouble getting PLA to adhere on the new printers glass plate.  I have only tried ABS Goop since I am out of hair spray but it has not worked as well as it does on my Prusa I3.

Clean the Other Extruder!

If you have two extruders, and they don't have the fancy lifter thingy, then you need to make sure there is no plastic left hanging on the unused extruder.   It will grab the print being laid down by the other extruder and pull it off the bed!

Struggles with Simplify 3D

I bought a copy of Simplify 3D to drive my new printer and have spent a fair amount of time in hand to hand combat getting it to work.   I think that I like the software, and I can certainly see it's potential, but it seems to have a lot of areas for reconsideration (e.g. bugs).

When you first start the software you select your printer from a list.  My printer was there so I selected it.  Now a bit of a caveat, I had initially played with the software trying to get it to drive my Prusa I3.   Not sure if this is relevant or not...but...things did not seem right from the outset.   I started with the built-in profile that uses the right extruder which I had loaded with PLA.   It worked but for some reason it was not reporting the temperature of the build platform.   DId not seem right but I perservered and was able to do some prints.  Pretty much out of the box the printer and software delivered better quality (on gross details) and speed than my Prusa I3.   There was still a lot of tuning to do on fine details and on bridging.

Time to try some ABS.   I loaded up the left extruder, selected the profile for the left extruder, set it up for ABS and tried to print.   No go.   It just would not print on the left extruder.   So I open a topic on the Simplify 3D Support Forum and get some advice from a JoeJ.   The advice was to select "Reset All Settings" from the Help Menu.  Seems like the equivalent of "Ctrl-Alt-Del"...and just like a reboot...it worked.   Reselected my printer on startup, selected the profile for the left extruder, and not only did it work but the temperatures were now reporting accurately.

So what corrupted things?  Acts like a bug, looks like a bug, probably a bug?  Or just personality?

BTW, since I first wrote the above it has happened again.  Out of the blue the printer started to do a tool change on one of the temperature changes.  Did the magic reset, reloaded my profile and it still did not work.   Created a whole new profile, and it worked.   A while later  reloaded the orginal profile.....and it worked?!?!?

Next post will cover some aspects of calibration.

First Impressions of the Wanhao Duplicator 4S

There are already good unboxing videos and walk throughs, such as this one, so I am going to be fairly brief.

I would say that I was impressed with the quality of the packaging when my printer arrived.  It was a nice, well thought, out little cube.  Not a light one when you consider the weight of the printer with its metal frame, all the accoutrement's, and two reels of filament!   Assembly proceeded pretty much as shown in the unboxing videos.   My only comment here was that I either missed something in the documentation, was not given all the documentation available, or the documentation really just sucks when it comes to assembly!   Not a big deal as things pretty much slot together but it would have been nice to have a parts inventory to know what bolts were to go where.  Again, not a big deal as the fit became obvious.

Once the printer was assembled I went to level the bed and discovered my first problem.   Only two of the four adjustment points had butterfly bolts on them!   I called Technology Outlet and they were surprised as they had not encountered that issue before.   They dispatched the missing parts immediately.   This was not fast enough for me though.   I quickly printed off some substitutes on my Prusa I3 and we were in business.   Bed leveling, btw, was another area where the reality of the documentation in the box did not match the firmware.  At this point the impressive looking manual that came with the printer went in the bin.   Maybe there is one online that was more complete and up to date.  If so then there should have been a big note somewhere that I missed.

At this point I loaded up some filament and was pleased at how well the autoloader worked.  MUCH nicer than my old printer.   So what to do.   With no further ado I printed the sample from the SD card that came with the printer.   Big old butterfly.   Printed great.  I really would have liked some smaller prints to choose from though.  

Now to first impressions of the software that comes with the printer.    One look and I was glad that I had bought a copy of Simplify 3D.   I don't think that I would use ReplicatorG even if I had not recently invested in Simplify 3D.   Powerful it looks to be but also really confusing.   Being familiar with Slic3r as a slicer and Printrun as the streamer I would probably have kept that as a basic workflow and added what I would have needed to get stuff into the binary language of Sailfish.

Next post will talk about my trials and tribulations doing my first prints with Simplify 3D.

What 3D Printer do we Need?

The first thing that I did was look for 3D printer reviews on the web.  There are a fair number of reviews out there but not that many from what I would consider a "reputable" source (that you did not have to pay for) and that were recent.   Looking at the first items returned on a search you get titles like:

• Best 3D Printer 2015 - Top-Rated 3D Printers - Tom's Guide 
• Best 3D Printers Review 2015 | Best Afforadable 3D Printers

I am not sure who "Tom" is but at least he can spell.   Neither filled me with confidence!

The guide that I found and liked was the one from 3D Hubs.  The guide is based on user feedback from the 3D Hubs community and since these are people that actively use their printers, and since at least three reviews are required for a listing, I feel good about the believing what I would read there.

I had already read a lot about Ultimaker and really liked their new printer but absolutely did not want to spend more than 1,000 pounds (a lot more, and before even buying the second extruder option)!  So ruling that out I started to focus on the Flashforge Creator Pro.  This is one of a whole crew of Chinese clones of the Makerbot Replicator.  Not surprising given that the Makerbot Replicator is a successful printer based on the open-source model.  Since the Makerbot models are all over my price point, and the clones are getting good reviews, the Flashforge looked good.  The review on 3D Hubs was pretty compelling as well.

Note that a lot of printers fell by the wayside when applying some of my requirements:

• Heated bed (needed to print ABS), 
• Enclosed (quiet and helps with printing ABS), 
• Dual extruders, and
• Build platform large enough to print any of my cases.

Having decided on the Flashforge Creator Pro it was time to look for sellers.   They are available on eBay and through Amazon but there is a reseller in the UK (midlands area) that sells the Flashforge so I took a closer look at them (Technology Outlet).

One of my questions was whether they had a glass plate that fit the Flashforge that could be included in the order.  I contacted them and asked that question.   We chatted a bit and I got the recommendation that I might want to look at the Wanhao Duplicator 4S as it comes with a glass plate, is pretty much the same as the Flashforge (e.g. it is yet another Makerbot clone), and was a little less expensive.   So, with the Wanhao putting me firmly closer to 500 pounds than to 1000 pounds I decided that I would go for it and buy it from the Technology Outlet.

Which is exactly what I did a couple of days later once I had escaped from the hospital.  See, being in the hospital may have been what tipped my wife towards the idea that we really needed a new printer.  I am not below exploiting sympathy!

Next post the unboxing and initial impressions.

New 3D Printer Needed Here!

I have decided that I want, nay need, a new 3D printer to replace the Prusa I3 that I built some time ago.   My requirements for this new printer are as follows:

• Be able to print ABS as well as PLA.   The Prusa I3 can print both but the 12V build platform, combined with it being an open printer, makes it problematic.
• Be enclosed.   Making it both quieter and better able to deal with ABS.
• Be quieter. See above!
• Be capable of easily printing .1mm resolution.  The Prusa I3 can do this but it takes care and feeding.
• Be more dependable.  The Prusa I3 has been reasonably dependable but it seems there is always something that I am doing to it or that it is doing to me!
• Have two extruders.  At first so I can print ABS and PLA without switching reels but ultimately so I can print with dissolvable supports.
• Include more ease of use features.  Such as the two extruders but also including a more easily adjustable build platform and easy loading extruders.
• Large build platform.  Large enough to print any of the cases that I have designed.

I do actually, really, have a reason for needing a new printer.  Honest.  I am ready to start selling a couple of my designs and while print quality on the Prusa I3 would probably be acceptable I want what I "might" sell to be better.  Obviously the dependability requirement plays into this as well.

In my next post I will talk about the printers that I am considering.

RPi Pan Tilt

Short link to the Raspberry Pi Pan Tilt Camera posts:

Overview
Parts List
Assembly
Software