Random 3D printing chatter

[Haggisman]

Cheers, I'll give that a go.

Noticed I was getting a load of stringing as well, tweaked the retraction, temperature, and cooling and much better, so will try again with some support (or minimal infill if I can't get that to work)

 

[Cenedd]

If you're aiming for entirely hollow, that's your problem. Howabout something like Lightning infill that's designed to be almost not there and just provide minimum support?
The tail, I reckon you're right there with the minimum layer time or not enough cooling - the heat of the nozzle has melted previous layers. Perversely, it could be minimum layer time that's CAUSING the problem as one of the options (if I remember correctly) is rather than print layer, wait, print next layer, it will just slow down the extrude so that it takes at least the minium time to do the layer. That slow movement is what would be causing the re-melting. Worth a check of the timelapse that you're bound to have turned off on the one time it would be useful!
You might be on the right track with the separate item to soak up layer time but the downside would be that you'll get stringing to/from it instead....unless you've really nailed it with those retraction tweaks.

 

[Scougar]

Was just at my buddies house in New Jersey, and had a look at his two Prusa XL's (I think they were called). 5 tool heads, massive bed. Minimal wastage of filament. I suddenly now need to spend $4k plus ....

 

[Cenedd]

Yup, the XL. Seen it, drooled a bit. Worth checking into opinions (I mean, your friend should do!) as I've heard they can be a bit picky. Also heard that PETG can, perversely, need it's temp INCREASED to reduce ooze and stringing. Apparently it makes it a bit more fluid and let's the retract work.

 

[Scougar]

Finally bought myself a UPS (APC 1500VA/900w AVR), after a local transformer blew and caused printer to reset. Print was 75% done on a day and a half print, and as I am producing these parts now to sell, I can't have that.

Not really a money saver, just a time saver.

 

[5abr3]

Finally bought myself a UPS (APC 1500VA/900w AVR), after a local transformer blew and caused printer to reset. Print was 75% done on a day and a half print, and as I am producing these parts now to sell, I can't have that.

Not really a money saver, just a time saver.

Suppose you could argue it is a money saver on it bridges the gap during power cuts often enough to avoid wasting the already spent filament & electricity.

 

[Scougar]

Yup, the XL. Seen it, drooled a bit. Worth checking into opinions (I mean, your friend should do!) as I've heard they can be a bit picky. Also heard that PETG can, perversely, need it's temp INCREASED to reduce ooze and stringing. Apparently it makes it a bit more fluid and let's the retract work.

He prints mostly in PETG, and uses PLA for support material. He is currently printing multi-colour magnetic holsters for competition shooting amongst other things. I haven't asked him about any issues with it. He did show me in the modelling tool how to do fuzzy skin using multi-models in the slicer, and then stippled it after, and it looks and works amazingly well.

For my sins, I just bought a second FLSUN V400 yesterday to support my small business of printing paintball parts as I got quite a few orders. I can tell you, it's a little scary investing, then re-investing money into something when it's thousands of dollars.

 

[Cenedd]

Cool. Multi toolhead is definitely the better way for mixed materials. Less chance of jamming when you have different temps to deal with and also no chance of them being mixed when they shouldn't. For example, I tried to print a PETG part using PLA as non-stick support. Printed well but the parts that were supported just fell off as there was enough PLA mixed in later on that it wasn't cohesive. Maybe longer purge would have done it but not mixing them in the first place sounds better!
"investing...": Yup, definitely. At least in IT, it's usually someone else's money on the line!