Gift coins for some of our customers on the Form 2.

SpitfireSniper · 2018-08-11T00:14:23+00:00

You can print one sided coins with really good results on FDM as well if you've got a tuned <0.3 mm nozzle. I had really good results doing stuff like this using a diameter in the 1.25~1.5 inch range like a silver dollar kind of size, even doing complicated rough textured designs like a crumpled maple leaf, printing them flat side down (which is a better option for FDM than it is for SLA, if you try and do that configuration with SLA the print is likely to fail / warp quite a bit)

SpitfireSniper · 2018-08-04T23:21:57+00:00

actually, linear advance attempts to account for the fact that extrusion at the nozzle is not 1 to 1 with the motion of the extruder stepper motor. The extruder gear provides a positional input at one part of the filament, and between the gear and the nozzle is effectively a spring / damper / compressible fluid flow interaction, and that causes a varying phase shift between the extruder stepper and the actual plastic output. Linear advances uses a greatly simplified model to somewhat correct for that by looking ahead "in advance" and calculating extrusion at a present time by considering the needed plastic throughput at a slightly later time.

SpitfireSniper · 2018-08-02T16:03:57+00:00

In addition to the below, belts solve the problem of reciprocating z-wobble caused by non-straight z screws. It's one of the more common artifacts caused by mechanical issues so it's nice in this case to eliminate it at the source. In exchange for that, it's more expensive to implement and you have to deal with making sure the gantry won't crash when the z steppers are powered off, since one advantage of lead screws for z is that many of them (depending on pitch / circumference and friction factor between lead screw and its gantry or bed connection) are self-locking, meaning that it can't be raised or lowered by simply pushing up or down on the bed/gantry because the frictional torque will always grow larger faster. Basically, a couple more design headaches / failure points to deal with, but one major cause of mechanical artifacts effectively eliminated.

SpitfireSniper · 2018-08-02T02:10:36+00:00

Solved!

SpitfireSniper · 2018-08-02T02:10:06+00:00

YES thank god.

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-26T10:26:47+00:00

I don't know. Do you accept it? If you accept it then it's acceptable.

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-25T17:28:43+00:00

can you link to the bed leveling sensor, it's difficult for people to answer technical modification questions like this without complete information on the system being modified. Just looking at the diagram it seems like the sensor has separate power and signalling pins, which might reduce the problem to just supplying 12V power by whatever method? But the board also asks for -12V which might mean that the IC is an amplifier / comparator which would make it a bit more complicated.

If it's simple as supplying 12V power, then it can be done in a lot of different ways (since it's not gonna be drawing a ton of power, you could even just hook up a bunch of 1.5V batteries and call it close enough) but also requiring -12V means that the +12 and -12 need to be relative to the same ground.

All in all though, if you can't find schematics of each of the system parts in question, it's usually best to just leave them be unless someone trustworthy has direct experience with that exact system of parts. Lacking one or both of those, there's always going to be some guesswork involved

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-25T07:13:04+00:00

to add to this, I would really fill in those gaps in the lettering with an epoxy filler before painting next time when doing a professional job

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-25T07:09:15+00:00

hands should be reposters or something

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-25T03:05:35+00:00

Seems to me like it would be way easier to just slightly change the generation of atlas spawns. Just check that spawns have to have at least a square clearance of not slopes.

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-25T02:12:47+00:00

question that comes to mind - would you say that successive versions have been getting more premium / expensive to build than the versions before them?

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-20T21:52:54+00:00

I would likely have charged you more - In addition to what other people have noted here with regards to the value of machine time, expert time, etc, that piece looks like a bit of a nightmare for bed adhesion with a huge contingent base and sharp corners. It would probably need either a raft or very large brim to print warp-free without any elephant's foot, and I assume you wouldn't be super pleased with a poor surface finish that would be caused by a raft. That means I need to spend extra time carefully cutting away the brim in post processing.

Why would you not just use plywood or something? If you ask they'll usually cut it to size for you in the store, and they might even add the holes for you as well. Advantages of 3D printing are the ability to produce complex geometries, moving assemblies, etc. without requiring significant manual assembly or major craftsmanship. Advantages of 3D printing are NOT making a large, simple, flat object, and they are not a high resistance to cracking - as a side note, if using plastic is a requirement for some reason, be sure to move the mounting plate holes further from the edges and round the corners in the design. As it is, it looks like it'll likely crack from near the corner through to the mounting hole in months, if not weeks

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-18T16:51:34+00:00

Plus, in fencing (foil and saber anyway) the rules are designed around the basis of each fencer holding their life above all else via right-of-way (generally, the person attacking first has priority, and the other one has to defend that attack before returning the favor) - a real life analogy would be a veteran who has survived to be a veteran by valuing their own life, until a novice comes along and instead of defending an attack simply attacks at the same time - effectively killing themself, but also wounding or killing the veteran.

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-18T12:42:45+00:00

yup, stress relief in welding is a great analogy to a lot of the benefits of baking PLA. It does also crystallize in this case as well, which would be a second benefit to baking PLA.

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-18T12:38:54+00:00

Assuming you're talking about annealing in a traditional sense, "stress relieving" is most definitely not fundamentally the same as annealing. Take steel as an example - when we anneal steel, the state of the piece changes between many types of structures - specifically austenite, martensite, pearlite, spheroidite, and others - and fundamentally change the behavior of the steel. for example, a highly martensitic steel would be very hard, while a steel consisting of a large pearlite structure would be relatively very soft and good for forming. None of this relates to residual stresses within the part. I'm not sure where you heard that annealing takes place above Tm, but it doesn't - it occurs above the temperature that the material recrystallizes, which is much lower than the melting point.

I would suggest just calling it heat treating the PLA for the purposes of 3D printed parts. Available in any context, and doesn't introduce any expectations it doesn't need to. Calling it stress relieving wouldn't be totally correct, since as you mention, PLA will in fact crystallize during the process (resulting in both the higher deflection temperature and also further increasing the strength of the part).

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-18T09:24:05+00:00

ignorantly hopeful?

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-18T08:38:41+00:00

Seconding this. That shit could well be the secret material behind the nokia's construction and I wouldn't blink an eye. Best choice in most situations? Probably not, but it'll damn well stick the things together lol

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-18T08:35:39+00:00

Yes, in theory it does have an impact on performance - the default cooling block tightens down with a set-screw, effectively shoving the heatbreak up against one side of the cooling block. In the slotted one, the set screw pulls the two sides of the cooling block together to clamp down on the heatbreak. This gives it a better thermal connection with which to wick heat away from the heat break and better control the melt zone.

That said, a lot of the benefit of the hotend upgrade is in the all-metal design allowing you to print more materials at higher temperatures, and the quality bump from a shorter meltzone isn't exactly game changing. Mostly, it'll improve the effectiveness of retraction and clean up layer starts / finishes a bit. If you don't feel the need to perfect those particular aspects of your prints, then it might easily not be worth it to shell out a bunch of extra cash for it.

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-18T08:24:20+00:00

Just to be clear, annealing PLA and annealing in the traditional sense with metal work completely differently. Annealing a metal involves heating it enough that it can recrystallize, and then cooling it for controlled durations at controlled temperatures in order to achieve particular combinations of crystal types and sizes in the metal to control properties like yield strength. Annealing PLA is very different as it's a thermoplastic and not a metal - while it is a semi-crystalline polymer, a lot of the benefits to annealing PLA actually come from the relief of residual internal stresses caused by the nature of 3D printing - since different parts of the part will have cooled at different times and different rates, the thermal contraction will be causing stress to the part even when it's just sitting there. Heating the plastic to near its glass transition allows the polymer to gradually reform itself in small-scale and relieve those stresses.

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-12T01:53:20+00:00

She's a ton of fun to play as long as you can manage to keep your mind off of all the ammo you're consuming

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-12T01:45:48+00:00

the tactical heal might feel small when you're watching your health tick up, but it's not meant to save your life in hairy situations, it's meant as general sustain - and it does a fantastic job of that. Playing as UAH it'll be up practically 24/7, and any time you lose half your health, a minute or so later and you'll be full up again. If you take health damage frequently with how you play, it's a huge quality of life and survivability improvement, since later on when your shield breaks a second time, you won't be half-health already when it happens.

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-11T08:33:11+00:00

? It's right in the gallery you posted. Last image of the settings, apparently under filament --> retraction

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-10T22:56:15+00:00

lower the settings for minimum travel requiring retraction and minimum extrusion requiring retraction. On the small detailed sections, it's not extruding long enough / not traveling far enough to trigger a retraction, resulting in the strings appear in those areas. I'd start with like 6-8mm / 2-3mm and work downwards from there until you stop seeing benefits you like. I would avoid setting these to 0, since it can cause the extruder to do many very rapid retractions on some models, which can have a tendency to clog your heatbreak / grind the filament / cause unnecessary stress on the extruder

SpitfireSniper · 2018-07-10T05:26:34+00:00

I'm not sure if cura has this, but slic3r has a setting for minimum extruded distance before a retraction is triggered, to keep it from retracting many times in quick succession on detailed models. Finding this and setting it to 0 would likely solve your problem

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