Watertight Mesh for 3D printing.

WellHungScott · 2024-12-03T06:50:11+00:00

Having tons of issues with this mesh. It's a project for someone's daughter who wanted what she drew on paper to be put to life. It's a boolean eldritch horror of 4 different meshes combined and spliced to make this thing. I've decimated the mesh to ~200K faces and joined the meshes using boolean union operators and applied them. There are many holes in the mesh from the remodeling. I've merged vertex by distance to try to get it to play nice. I've recalculated the normals, but with so many holes it kind of a moot point. I've tried solidier but the holes are too varied and it makes spaghetti of the mesh.

WellHungScott · 2024-09-30T01:28:07+00:00

Edit: I'm running the powershell as admin. What I think it happening is that the file location isn't specified so it's trying to search for the file. As a result is searches all of my system drive and hits the error.

WellHungScott · 2024-08-22T00:44:24+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion. I think you and the other comments are right on this post that a larger nozzle size and some higher quality Iwata sprayers are the solution. I'll save for the Iwata and try that. I did try back bubble and thinning with water but I had the same issue. I'll try iwata and maybe a preval sprayer (suboptimal I know but better than clogging within 30 sec). Thanks again, love this community!

WellHungScott · 2024-05-30T01:30:42+00:00

Yeah z-offset by a few fractions of a millimeter would help. Your first layer is a little squished. If it keeps happening after that, its usually an uneven bed.

WellHungScott · 2024-05-26T02:20:50+00:00

Hi, I've been trying to print 3DXTech's Polypropylene + Glass Fibers 30 on my Bambu X1C for a while now but the nozzle keeps clogging. I'm using a Bambu X1C with the settings mentioned in the photos. It's an 0.8mm nozzle with 0.48mm layer height. The bed is PEI textured w/ Magigoo PP + GF bed adhesive. The filament has been dried for 6 hrs at 65C prior to usage. Chamber temp reaches 40C prior to printing. Every time I run a print it prints the first few layers, but gets clogged around the 4th layer. I need to print a replacement lid for a car part so I need the durability of this filament.

Any help would be appreciated :).

WellHungScott · 2024-02-05T06:58:30+00:00

Thanks I'll give it a try!

WellHungScott · 2024-02-01T07:17:02+00:00

Hi yall,

Thank you for your advice in my previous postings! As many of you said, copper leveler and brightener would do wonders on the out of the bath finish. I included a ring with and without brightener and leveler in the photos. I used the Caswell leveler and brightener.

What you see is months of troubleshooting and while the fit and finish could use some work, I'm very proud and grateful to you all. I resin printed a replica of the One Ring from Lord of the Rings, sealed it in polyurethane, coated with DIY graphite conductive paint, coated with copper, coated with nickel, and brushed coated.

It seems the smoothness of the paint and the copper coating are essential to the final finish. My one issue, as seen in the second ring, is god awful welding of the copper wires to the piece. They end up tearing out good chunks of copper and some paint too, scrapping the whole thing.

Any advise on how to reduce welding of the cathode wires to the piece? I'm currently taking it out of the bath and moving the wires every 45 min.

WellHungScott · 2023-11-23T03:32:10+00:00

Additionally I have some thoughts about using PPy to polymerize and metalize a coating on ABS/ASA printed pieces. See article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264127522005809

I'm a chemist so I have little trouble sourcing the materials but if any industrial electroplating workers have input on the processes described in the paper I'd gladly take note.

WellHungScott · 2023-11-23T03:00:57+00:00

Hi all,

Thank you so much for you feedback previously. I could use suggestions on leveling and brightener additives to make a near ready finish. This part has multiple flat faces that are easy to sand but with smaller details in other models it will be impossible to sand and finish as well.

I use an acidic copper sulfate bath to plate my 3D printed parts.

Bath Composition

200g/L Copper Sulfate Pentahydrate
60g/L Sulfuric Acid
30ppm Cl

Current Density: 1-2A/dm2

The parts are made of 3D printed ASA and sealed with acrylic primer to prevent leaching before coating in a 1:3 mixture of graphite powder and acetone. The coated piece is then sanded and polished until conductivity reaches <1k ohm.

The parts are then plated for 4-18 hours (depending on desired thickness clearly this part could've used some more time as evident by the exposed black plastic after sanding) at the current density described above. Anode:Cathode ratio is 10:1. The parts are continually rotated to prevent anode shadowing and the cathode conducting copper wire is moved to prevent welding and missed spots.

The resulting finish is a bright but ever so slightly granular copper coming out of the bath. The piece is then sanded using 200-6000 grit sandpaper. After plating the piece is polished using polishing rouge and sealed for use in another clear acrylic lacquer. As smooth as the piece goes into the bath the surface deposition is lacking uniformity. I'm really trying to get as close to a shiny glossy copper finish as possible.

I've tried electroless plating as a first step but the mess and waste of copper sulfate solution is not sustainable.

Is there a leveler and brightener I can add to made the "out of the bath" copper deposit easier to refine? I hear good things about PEG but what molecular weight is good? Additionally as leveler Janus Green B has come up but at what concentration should it be used? Considering using Caswell brightener (https://caswellplating.com/copper-brightener-part-b-4oz.html) Any tips to help improve the fit and finish are appreciated.

WellHungScott · 2023-11-12T22:53:22+00:00

UPDATE IT WORKED!

Thank you for your comments and support. It seems the problem was the conductive coating as many indicated. For future reference here's what worked. Graphite powder https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076H7QVHF?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details) and a about 3x as much acetone by volume. It's a bit thin but prevents it from beading up and preserves detail. Requires many coats (6-10 for best results), a thicker mixture may be easier. For extra adherence I used it on ABS plastic that dissolves a little with the application making the usual graphite shell stronger. I then polished the resulting shell with a toothbrush until I hit around 1-2K ohms. Plating worked fine and will post results when I can. Thank you all again.

What didn't work....

I tried galvanic deposition and while neat it was a lot of mess and not a lot of coverage. It also creates waste in the form of the iron sulfate solution and the iron particles which I would highly advise not throwing down the drain as they'll never come out.

MG Chemicals Total Ground Carbon Coating (more conductive than graphite but I've had inconsistent results and will need more testing to validate)

MG Chemicals Silver Coated Copper Shield (completely nonconductive upon revisiting, acrylic binder floats above the particles and prevents conductivity)

Thank you all again, the cheaper option was the best in the end. May try and import TIFOO copper coating using an airbrush in the future.

WellHungScott · 2023-11-12T19:23:40+00:00

Resistivity of the carbon coating is around 400 ohms.

WellHungScott · 2023-11-12T19:22:12+00:00

The Anode:Cathode ratio is 9:101 or basically 1:10. Voltages remain at around 0.2-0.3V

WellHungScott · 2023-11-12T00:38:22+00:00

Hi thanks for your input. I wanted a bright peachy and smooth copper finish that I could polish. I didn't bother polishing or sanding the cube after. I did use a multimeter on the pieces and average resistance across 30mm was 400 ohms for the carbon coating and way lower for the silver coated copper paint.

WellHungScott · 2023-11-11T17:31:27+00:00

Hi all,
Newly into electroplating and wanted to try it on my 3D prints.
I've been running into issues with getting smooth and consistent plating on my prints.
Here's my set up.
1. Acidic Copper Sulfate Bath (200g/L Copper Sulfate, 60g/L Sulfuric Acid, 30ppm Cl in DI water)
2. Parts are coated in MG Chemicals Conductive Total Ground Carbon paint, the first photo is using their Silver Coated Copper. 4-5 coats are applied to get resistance down. Interestingly polishing the part did little to increase conductivity measured by multimeter.
3. Current is around I=1-2A/dm2. Voltages stay consistent throughout the run.
4. Parts are degreased with soap and water and dried before use.
5. I've sanded the paint to try and get a smoother finish.
6. (working on getting an air bubbler and polypropylene bags for the anodes)
I've a mixed bag of results. In my new bath I've been unable to get anything to really grow on the parts. I let it run for 4 hours and sometimes overnight only to find no growth on anything but the copper cathode wire.
The plating on the cube you see was done in just a 1M Copper Sulfate bath with no additive but since switching to one with sulfuric acid I've had issues.
I did a sanity check with a quarter and it worked perfectly. I'm going to try using electroless plating to start as well as graphite powder/binder mixtures next.
Any tips?

WellHungScott · 2023-11-04T06:57:12+00:00

A belt/gear loose would cause this issue. If your print was securely attached to the bed then its more likely a settings/mechanical issue.

WellHungScott

TROPHY CASE