I find I have to rescrub the bed fairly often to get good adhesion. I wash with dish soap and warm water, spot dry with a clean towel (while avoiding touching the plate with bare hands) then finish with a light wiping with electronics-grade isopropyl alcohol (don't use alcohol from the pharmacy, it contains other stuff that can contaminate your bed).

(here's good alcohol for cleaning print beds: https://www.amazon.com/MG-Chemicals-824-1L-Isopropyl-Alcohol/dp/B005DNQX3C )

Finally, your prints are over extruding, quite a bit. Your printer would benefit from a proper flow calibration. While a calibration is the best way to set this, you can wing it by lowering and inspecting parts. I'd say to start by lowering the flow roughly 10-15 points (out of 100) based on the picture you posted.

This is great help.

Cleaned the bed and the fist print today is doing great but it's also in black. In researching I bought my first order of roles of PLA from SUNLU. Next purchase I will give the one you are using a try.

In my experience yes they can. It isn't common and usually the difference is not much. However I did create a separate filament profile for eSun PLA Pro Yellow (versus all the other colors from the same manf). For some reason for me that color needs higher temperature and some changes to retract. The difference is consistent across multiple spools, so not related to a specific batch. I now print temp towers the first time I try a new color or manf just to be sure.

I could see it possible that you are right on the lower end border of your first layer print temps and switching to a different color that requires another 5C bump higher could cause specific color first layer bed adhesion troubles. All that said, it's way more likely as Pete suggested to be the bed surface needing a quick IPA wipe down.

For sure. I just learned this the other day - apparently white is the worst /most unreliable color because it has a higher percentage of pigment in it, and prints in say a red can go great but the exact same print in white will have all sorts of issues. I switched to colorless filament recently to see if that fares better

Sorry, but I must disagree here. Drug store rubbing alcohol will be just as pure as any other form of isopropyl. Don't use the 70%. That's perfect for disinfecting, but not for cleaning. You want the 99% isopropyl. But the only other thing in either the 70% or 99% is distilled water.

In fact, I'm not sure I've ever even seen isopropyl alcohol sold in any form other than exactly what you'd get in a drug store.

All that said, isopropyl alcohol is generally pretty expensive wherever you get it, I guess because of its medical applications. Denatured alcohol (aka "methylated spirits") is a reasonable alternative. It is primarily ethyl alcohol (ethanol), with some methyl alcohol and trace amounts of other things mixed in to discourage people from drinking it, but it should be fine for cleaning purposes. You can usually find it at the hardware/DIY store, in larger quantities than isopropyl is usually sold in, and at lower prices too.

Though, in truth, each wipe-down of the build plate doesn't really take that much alcohol. I personally use drug store 99% isopropyl, in spite of the expense, because it still takes me a long time to go through a whole bottle. Per-print it's way cheaper than the filament itself, so I don't worry about the cost that much.

Also, probably obvious to most, but just in case: wait for the print bed to cool down before cleaning it with any type of alcohol. Otherwise, the alcohol will just evaporate before it gets a chance to clean anything.

You just have to check the ingredients and make sure it doesn't have any added bitterants or anything like that. It should just list alcohol and water. My drug store often has different kinds and some will have the additives, some won't.

I made this mistake once and cleaned a bong with one that had bitterant added to it and almost destroyed my lungs.

Interesting. I've never seen anything like that. Any bottles I've ever bought, just have "water" as inactive ingredients. But a quick look at the 70% rubbing alcohol Walgreens sells online, sure enough there's other stuff:

rubbing alcohol inactivte ingredients

Yeah, I wouldn't want to inhale any of those non-water ingredients.

Probably more common than I realize. Yours and Diablo's warnings are clearly to be heeded. Good to know!

Note, though, that you shouldn't be washing the build plate with the 70% version, or even 91%. Even if the only other ingredient was water, you don't want that extra water hanging around. The 99% ("anhydrous") version should be pure.

Man, if you guys think the 99% alcohol is expensive, I can’t wait to hear what you think about doing resin printing, where you need literal GALLONS of the stuff!

Weird, I have two bottles from different brands here and both say isopropyl alcohol as the active ingredient and non-medicinal is water. Maybe a regulatory thing regarding how specific you have to be on the ingredient list where you live.

I do remember the one that had the bitterant to prevent people from drinking it said it on the label that it had additives and the ingredients had more than just isopropyl alcohol so I always watch out for that.

But yeah, if you can get 99% and get one that has the fewest ingredients that will be the best at cleaning without leaving residue.

I have a resin printer that's been sitting in my garage for a year now, unused, partly because of that. Borrowed from a friend who wasn't using it, after my kids said they wanted to check it out. But they never got around to doing anything with it, and the thought of having to fuss with the fumes and the cleaning and the curing, just turns me off.

That said, I did get some extra isopropyl in preparation to try out the resin printer, but I would just go with denatured ethanol for bulk, because it's so much cheaper, and I'd probably also explore the resins that can be washed with water instead of alcohol. I hear those perform about as well, and course water is way cheaper and easier to come by.

I haven't found a good location or workflow in my shop to make it worthwhile to print anything on mine lately. It's just a lot of mess, and I haven't quite gotten the system down. My last handful of prints failed (although later I found out it was because the plastic on the bed that lets the light through was jacked up). You're supposed to ditch the alcohol after 30 cleanings/prints, and I'm not even halfway there yet. The successful prints are ASTOUNDING though - super high fidelity, even small parts

First the textured sheet and PLA don't always work perfectly together. Just make sure you are doing a first layer calibration on the textured sheet and that it is sticking a little better than usual (i.e. nozzle not as far from the surface).

Second, not all PLA filaments are chemically composed the same, even from the same manufacturer. While most are similar enough, some colors may require a slightly different chemical composition which will in turn exhibit different adhesion characteristics on different surfaces.

Over time you will learn what brands and colors you prefer based on things like adhesion, print temps, glossiness of finish, etc., and it will just become second nature to you. The main thing I found is that once I find a filament brand and color I like, I stick with it if at all possible so I don't have to deal with different characteristics when switching brands for the same color (sometimes you are still forced to due to availability).

still slowly improving the system but been filtering alcohol to reuse it as much as possible. couple of glass containers to let dirty resin sit for a week then syphon that and put it in a drip filtered bucket to give it an extra cleaning. I'll reuse that alcohol to do the bulk cleaning of prints, followed by another dump in cleaner alcohol. Seems that its turning my $70 a month cost in alcohol to every 4 months. If I can get the filtration to be more robust, should be able to extend that another ~2 months. Pain in the ass and takes a lot of space, but not so bad once I make a schedule and get in the groove of it

Interesting - why do you let the dirty resin sit for a week? What are you using for filters?

To let all the heavy resin residue sink to the bottom. Week is being lazy but should be good at 3-5 days. Letting it sink and draining it with a spigot or hose syphon will give a decently cleaner leftover alcohol. Then I'll move it to the next part. I have two buckets stacked using these filters drilled from the top one through to the lid of the bottom one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09CTLFH4L

This cleans it up maybe 10% more. After all of it, it still tinted with the resin and slightly has that sticky residue...but its clean enough to get some solid rinses from fresh prints. After that rinse It'll go to another bucket with clean IPA. Since I'm dumping those prints with that mostly clean alcohol to a new tank with fresh IPA, it takes much longer for that second bucket to get dirty. I'll then dump that second bucket IPA to the cleansing system when it gets dirty enough. All in all, I'm just buying IPA to replace the second bucket at the moment.

I found some threads on other places with different filtration methods, but havent had the time to look deeper into it. But at the least saving ~80% in costs is good enough atm.

Fantastic - this sounds like a pretty good system, and far less wasteful. Right now my resin printer area is blocked by another project, but once I finish that, I may give this a shot

Yeah, you'll need to dedicate the space for it. This is what it looks like so far. You can see in the jar photo at the bottom the sediment. I mostly use grey resin so thats the tint it's gained.

This is what I mostly followed in this youtube link. I need to rewatch it because I dont get the results he does. Not sure if I missed a step or just the type of resin I'm using versus his. The main thing I added was that sediment process with the jar in order to have the filters last longer catching less of the heavier crud. He has to constantly wipe the filters because they're clogging.

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I cross-posted in the Cyclone thread but I don't get to post in this one very often and I thought you might like to see this. In putting the Cyclone back together I found that the underneath clear ball trough was broken. Only the end had broken and someone had epoxyed a metal plate to it in the past but it was cracking around it.IMG_6757 (resized).jpgIMG_6758 (resized).jpg

Marcos shows $65 for a replacement so I decided to crank out a sleeve I could use to brace the end. A little work in Fusion 360 and a couple of prints later and I have a sleeve printed in clear that fits nicely over the broken end and will glue on to strengthen it.IMG_6756 (resized).jpgIMG_6755 (resized).jpg

Nice! I love those kinds of 3D printing projects. Extending the lifetime of other parts, with just a little time investment.

I'm curious though: did you print that upside down on a raft? Kind of looks like contact points from supports or something along the top edge of the piece. Don't think I've ever seen that on the actual top of a print before.

it was printed with the large flat edge down to prevent having to have supports. The issue is the top is at a slight angle so the little points you see are the end of a layer

Thank you for posting something pinball related and not the usual printer or filament gab.

What I always do for prints like this that are on an angle is use the slic3r option to decrease layer height when it gets to the end. That way you can print the majority of it at 0.2mm layers and then go down as low as your printer can for the ending to minimize those layer lines.

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I'm new to 3D printing and wrote a review of the Monoprice Voxel Pro. As someone who tried the Crality Ender 3 and failed miserably, this was a breath of fresh air. I still have no idea what I'm really doing yet, but I'm at least getting good print outs and finally feel like I'm ready to learn more now! Would love any feedback on the review.

https://www.neowin.net/reviews/new-to-3d-printing-the-monoprice-voxel-pro-should-be-on-your-short-list/

Finished my Hadley telescope. It's a pretty fun project to print, worth getting for someone for christmas if you know anyone into this kind of thing.

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oooooh I live with a bunch of space nerds do you have a project link? Looks fun!

Nice writeup Fez. Comments went off the rails pretty quick tho, just like Pinside.

https://www.printables.com/model/224383-hadley-an-easy-assembly-high-performance-newtonian

Here is the main page for it. It can be a little daunting at first since there isn't a clear set of instructions on how to assemble it but there is a discord linked in there that has a lot of helpful people. Worst part is getting the hardware and mirrors though. I just opted to order the kit since getting hardware here in Canada can be a pain.

My friend printed this from Thingiverse. Can this be modified to make it a little taller? That’s not the original switch or wire lugs so it’s really too tight the way it is. It pinches the wires.

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import it to tinkercad.com
adjust as necessary. export it to .stl file.
print again.
r/
Mike

Yes. The program that your friend used to slice the file will have a scale option. You can scale the X direction to be taller. There may be a checkbox for "Uniform Scaling" that you will have to turn off so that you can change just the X size.

Sure. How to, depends on what kind of result you're looking for.

If you literally just want to stretch it vertically, and don't mind a certain amount of distortion of features that might occur, the easiest is just set the vertical scale in the slicer before printing. The vertical direction is typically the "Z" axis.

With a little more effort, using tools like Tinkercad or the Windows built-in app 3D Builder, you can edit the shape by cutting it in half horizontally and inserting some extra height, or by stretching just the middle part, or other simpler edits.

Using even more capable software, the sky's the limit.

Thanks guys. My friend is just starting out with the 3D printing so he’s learning. It’s needs to be about an inch taller. The wire slot could be a little taller also.

If you want me to stretch it in TinkerCAD, just PM me your e-mail. Like everyone mentioned, it's exceptionally easy, but I don't mind doing it real quick so you don't have to get up to speed.

It's literally just a couple minutes of work.

But if you want to try it, just:
1 - create new 3D design
2 - import
3 - change height (bottom right of screen you can change between mm/inch)
4 - export stl
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Thank you very much. I’ll send you a PM.

Yeah, a little faster than pinside... kind of sad but what can you do.

Thanks for reading!

There's really no 1 setting for silk. Silk filaments can vary just as much as other styles so it really depends on the filament itself. Print yourself a temp tower to test it out.

I can second this advice. The Silk PLA's I've tried to date are a bit more stringy than regular PLA. Mine seemed to do better with a slightly lower temp (if I remember correctly) but if you're printing with lots of details, expect some clean-up of the parts at the end.

I've not had clogging issues at all with my MK3S+ with silk PLA. I do notice that it acts a little more "squishy" than regular PLA during filament changes, etc.

Did you print a temp tower/calibration cube/benchy with it? Some silk filaments are more prone to clogging, I ususally read the reviews first.

Just out of curiosity, have you considered soldering directly to the switch terminals rather than using those crimp connectors? That’ll give you all the clearance you need.

Yes I have considered it. I also just bought some flag shaped crimp lugs that I’m going to experiment with this weekend. That would also give me the extra room. I do have the correct crimper die for it. They have lower amp ratings (10 amps for 16-22 gauge) which is why I was hesitant but are probably ok. I would feel better if I could remove that 2nd purple wire from the switch and splice somewhere else instead of having 2 wires on 1 lug. The 2 purple wires were soldered to the old switch when I got the game last year. This is what it used to look like before the game was restored.

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For ender 3 owners, is there an extruder or hotend upgrade that will reduce clogs? I am changing filament once every few days and can't seem to get away from clogs. It's not usually a full clog, just a partial clog and I need to remove the tip and snake out the hot end.

all metal hotend. do not get microswiss, its overpriced and leaks. get creality's version. i upgraded all mine and its rock solid (and just $28). its about 4mm taller so you will need to adjust your z-axis stop switch. you may also need to adjust your retraction settings but thats every all metal hotend.
Creality All Metal Hotend Kit... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MVNLFHN

One other thing to be aware of is not having the Teflon tube inserted far enough. That can cause issues regardless of hot end.

I usually get about a years worth out of my stock hotend, then swap out the entire assembly given the low cost.

It's most likely not your hotend at all, but the teflon Bowden tube that goes into it. If that's not EXACTLY flat, and jammed all the way down flush to the bottom of the heating block, you'll get clogs like that. Might be worth checking before you spring for another hotend - I doubt that's the culprit. There's tutorials on how to change out the tube; basically you just need to review the 2nd half about reinserting.

Thanks. I do use the tubing cutter but will review.

This is a must do. Try also replacing your nozzle. They’re cheap and it’s easy.

This one took a while, but super happy with how it turned out. I’m so thankful for the folks who share their stuff on Thingiverse.

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