RE: PC printing on Core One
not really no...
The worst is Nylon, it will require a mandatory 48 hrs drying (if less than 90C) before it can be printed.... just a few hours of air exposure ruins it.
So, if it has not absorbed water (because it was not exposed to room air or other humidity at any time), it will not need to be dried, right? Really, Polymaker's statement "Drying only needed if the material has absorbed moisture" is a tautology.
RE: PC printing on Core One
I'm pretty sure I have the answer, and it's not good news. This part is only about 2" by 4" long, and even with the chamber right at 55c and a layer of Vision Miner nano-polymer adhesive applied to the satin sheet, the corners started lifting after the first 3 base layers. The inevitable crash and layer shift followed. I tried once more, slowing the speed down a bit, and again before the 4th solid base layer was done, the corners were lifting.
It looks like the Core One cannot do pure polycarbonate. I'll have to discuss options with my director to see if he's comfortable using one of the easier to print PC blends for our use case, or if we want to look into a more expensive printer that can hit higher temps.
-J
RE: PC printing on Core One
not really no...
The worst is Nylon, it will require a mandatory 48 hrs drying (if less than 90C) before it can be printed.... just a few hours of air exposure ruins it.
So, if it has not absorbed water (because it was not exposed to room air or other humidity at any time), it will not need to be dried, right? Really, Polymaker's statement "Drying only needed if the material has absorbed moisture" is a tautology.
The only companies products that I’ve run into so far that came with water in them was overture silk PLA… that specific one was just awful from the start and it finally dawned on me after reading a reply that someone had posted that it had water in it. it’s amazing to think that some manufacturers actually don’t dry their filaments.
RE: PC printing on Core One
A more positive update this morning. I was able to get a successful print out of the PC after a combination of things. The two main things were to dry the PC overnight (which slightly reduced the bits of thin stringing I saw yesterday, despite only having access to a 70c dryer) and adding mouse-ears to the corners of the part. The successful print was done at .25 layer height, with 4 perimeters, feeding filament out of the running dryer. The part itself is fairly thin, so the high number of perimeters was to support some screw risers. Otherwise the high perimeter count wouldn't have added to the warping force.
Round two this morning is to print a more difficult version of the model that includes all 4 sides. I've opted to drop the layer height to .2, and modified the side walls to have slots in them to reduce the continuous extrusions along the longer sides. I've also dropped the perimeter count to 2, and used a modifier to add perimeters to the risers. It's a ~2 hr print, so I'll know sometime in the next couple of hours if this more difficult print can be done on the core one.
If nothing else, this process is going to test the Core One at its full capacity. I'm running the bed, nozzle, and chamber at their max for the entirety of the prints. 😬 It's amazing how warm the steel case gets when the chamber heat is this high.
I need to reiterate that this is NOT a PC blend, but real PC from 3dxTech. I only know of two filament makers who sell real PC, 3dxTech and Airwolf 3d. It is more expensive than PC blends, and is harder to print, requiring much higher temps all around. It naturally results in stronger parts.
-J
RE: PC printing on Core One
Success follows success. 🙂 I had to modify this second model to minimize the long end warping forces, but the result is a 'flat enough' print that looks great and will probably be useable. I switched to the satin sheet and used nano-polymer adhesive again with large mouse-ears. The print stayed visually flat throughout the print, and I only noticed the slight curvature after removing it after it cooled off on the printer. It's possible that the chamber cooled off too fast.
-J
RE: PC printing on Core One
Congratulations on your success! Even after all these years there are still things to learn about how to design, slice and setup. Glad you found a path forward.
Regards,
Steve
P.S. you could probably easily implement some post print G-code to step down the heatbed temperature more slowly to slow the chamber cooling and avoid even the cooldown warping if necessary.
RE:
P.S. you could probably easily implement some post print G-code to step down the heatbed temperature more slowly to slow the chamber cooling and avoid even the cooldown warping if necessary.
That's a good idea. I run a very small PC fan at the end of a 4" exhaust hose to keep a very minor negative pressure in the chamber during printing, and adjust to allow the chamber to hold 55c the whole time. Once the print is done, I should probably turn that off and provide some step down on the bed.
-J