Care to critique my first ever successful (mostly) prints?
After assembly and spending several hours troubleshooting the first layer I'm finally getting good prints, at least in my opinion. Those who have been doing this a while may have a different idea of what is good so I'd like to know what your thoughts are. Any comments and/or suggestions are welcome and appreciated.
The Marvin and frog (left front foot) let loose and failed. After a good Dawn and IPA cleaning of the build plate the frog was successful and another Marvin is on the printer now that I expect will run to completion, but we'll see.
Next up... my first Benchy. Wish me luck!
Marvin update
Marvin just finished so adding...
Re: Care to critique my first ever successful (mostly) prints?
Looks decent to me. I see that Marvin's eyes came out well enough. Glad to read you are aware of how useful soap can be to solve adhesion issues!
Re: Care to critique my first ever successful (mostly) prints?
Jealous, you got the powder coat buildplate! 😮
I try to make safe suggestions,You should understand the context and ensure you are happy that they are safe before attempting to apply my suggestions, what you do, is YOUR responsibility. Location Halifax UK
Re: Care to critique my first ever successful (mostly) prints?
Ha @joan.t . I was patient and waited although I do feel for those who ordered very early. Tough situation JP was put in, no win situation IMHO. And no idea if it was worth the wait but it does seem to work since this my very first foray into 3d printing.
A follow up to the earlier posts. My very first benchy. Definitely not perfect but it did complete and not too too bad. How to improve before I move o to slicing my own models?
Thanks for looking
Re: Care to critique my first ever successful (mostly) prints?
Looks decent to me. I see that Marvin's eyes came out well enough. Glad to read you are aware of how useful soap can be to solve adhesion issues!
Only knew about the soap from reading this forum, which has been extremely helpful. In fact it was the thread "life adjust Z - my way" that got me moving in the right direction as far as live Z is concerned.
My problem was I just didn't appreciate the scale at which plastic extrudes from a 0.4mm nozzle. I had been reading and looking at pictures for three months waiting for the printer to arrive and I guess I lost focus on the true scale. I was surprised by how small these test prints actually are.
What was really throwing me off was the Z calibration print. On the purge line it extrudes more plastic at the beginning then less towards the end. And then again at the beginning of the zig-zag portion it does the same and then goes to a thinner line. Well I thought this was a sign of the nozzle underextruding or being partially clogged. I got to the point of doing a cold pull (my first), messing with the extruder idler tightness, drive gear set screw, and even began to think I was another victim of the heatbreak issue many spoke of on the forums and almost ordered the Microswiss heatbreak. Once I used the g-code from the above mentioned thread I began to realize that is the way the Z calibration print is supposed to be and it's the thinner portion of the print that should be adjusted for Z.
You're probably laughing by now but it took me several hours to realize this. Once the light came on things got a lot better. 🙂
Re: Care to critique my first ever successful (mostly) prints?
One of the 1st things you can do to start improving things is... slicing your own models. The gcode is still -- unless I've missed something -- from last year, so a lot of features like Linear Advance may not be used. Looking at my earliest 20mm cubes, I'm surprised at how much better my recent efforts look. Since you have a baseline target in that gcode Benchy, I'd suggest trying to slice Benchy yourself and comparing.
[...] My very first benchy. Definitely not perfect but it did complete and not too too bad. How to improve before I move o to slicing my own models?
Also be aware that silver filament lit from above like that is going to be next to impossible to make look good, especially blown up to 400%. Don't judge yourself too harshly on lighting. If it looks good, curves are smooth and lines are straight when viewed in ambient light, you're doing well. The "inconsistent extrusion" thing is its own issue, and very subject to lighting.
and miscellaneous other tech projects
He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two dimensional thinking. -- Spock in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
Re: Care to critique my first ever successful (mostly) prints?
You're probably laughing by now but it took me several hours to realize this.
No laughing here! I would say there are so many variables at play that it is a small miracle that us first time 3D printer owners get it figured out at all! As a younger man I am fairly certain that my MK3 would have been smashed to pieces within a week. Thankfully I'm not so short tempered these days and have enjoyed this struggle greatly. I printed a nice gargoyle and put it upon a Z-axis shaft holder to remind me who really is in charge! 😉