Random 3D printing chatter

No problem.

Poolybit said:
As soon as I get my garden office up and running,
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If you can, go for an Aircon unit (proper split system) rather than convector heaters or (god forbid!) storage heaters like they were trying to foist on me. It's a bit pricier to buy but you run it in reverse to heat the place over the winter, it's cheaper to run than a convector and in the summer you don't broil while you're trying to work.

Also, don't put roof lights in a flat roof unless you have utmost confidence in your roofer and you know where he sleeps! AMHIK! :rolleyes:
 
Rubber may be better if sealed well as it goes round the rooflight. The thing you may want to ask them about is, if the rooflight is square, should there be some wood (to form a slope) under the rubber on the uphill side so that the water can run off and not pool behind the rooflight. That's the issue I had in that when the water pools, it eventually finds a way in. The other option would seem to be to mount them at 45° so that they are diamond shaped with respect to the roof - then there's not a flat side for the water to pool by. Hope that makes sense - can send pictures in a PM if it's potentially useful but clear as mud.
 
Hmmm, post is gone now but in case it's a mistake. I don't think you'll have regrets about going for either a Prusa or a Bambu to be honest. I have Bambu and it's very good. Yes, I'd prefer it to be less cloudy based but you can do it if you want - there are even integrations into Home Assistant.
Noise, yeah you're going to have trouble with that. I have an X1C and had to put it on the other side of a partition wall because of the noise. Maybe you can run it slowly in "silent" mode but you lose the speed. I now have an A1 Mini in the room and that's mostly fine noise wise.... although when the part cooling fan ramps up to 100% for a burst at intervals, you wouldn't want to be trying to concentrate on something complicated.

Fumes: for PLA and PETG you're not going to notice anything. I just printed my first ASA (in enclosure) and there was a smell but nothing that having a door open didn't completely fix.... although I believe that one is somewhat toxic like ABS.

You might want to consider (if possible) putting the printer somewhere that has WiFi coverage but doesn't disturb anyone. Then you're fine for noise even on a long print overnight. A dry shed with power even.
 
You may find that the noise isn't a Bambu thing. Any high speed printer is going to make noise when whatever moves, moves fast. Motor noise cancellation does help a bit but it mainly makes the character of the noise less irritating. Bursts of high-speed fan are also annoying - as I'm sure you know - and it's often not at a fixed speed, it will ramp up for a short section and then down again so it doesn't fade into the background so much. The hot cupboard probably isn't so much of a problem as you think as for some prints, a warm breeze-free environment help (mainly ASA and ABS). The humidity is fairly easy to deal with too - just get either a dry box or one of the cereal containers (see post 1467 above), screw in a pneumatic fitting, slide in a bit of bowden tube and you're good to go. A good dose of desicant in the bottom and external humidity isn't a problem.
 
@goldy6660 Not sure a link is allowed as while this product isn't something the would compete with OCUK, they do on other products.
All the details are in this post though and if you search Google for that term you'll get a link as the first result. Current price is £19 for four. There are probably other sellers of an identical product in various places round the world but the ones you want have three grooves at the back instead of a deep handle and an octagonal shape on the top for the spouts.
 
You've got a few options that probably will depend on where you want to end up (personal use, business use etc).
I personally use Fusion 360 as there is a free for hobby/personal use version if you jump through the right hoops in the right order and renew it each year AFTER it has expired - you can't do it before.
OnShape is another that's all web-based and seems to be quite popular too.
Solidworks is also well thought of but I don't think there's a free version so it's probably more applicable if you're going to be usiyit professionally and the field you're looking at prefer it.
There's also things like Tinker CAD but - and I may be doing it a disservice - I think it's more aimed at STLs and tweaking stuff than a full featured package.
Irritatingly, I'm not sure you'll find SketchUp a lot of help - it's the path I started down but doesn't seem to have kept up and other things are different enough that it doesn't help a lot.

As for where to learn, YouTube is probably your most accessible. There are paid for online courses too, depends on your learning style/pace.
 
Not specifically as a series for starting from scratch to be honest. I went at it rather piece-meal and just used it to model things I needed and hit YT when I got stuck. Slowly brought it together enough that I can make good use of it but wouldn't call myself a whizz.
Fusion 360 School have some good 'how do I do this specific thing' type videos but I don't think it's a start from zero series. Plenty of those but I've not watched them so can't comment on how good/bad they are.
 
Chaos666 said:
Well.. It's not like you don't have to maintain the newer ones
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Yeah, I've had to grease the leadscrews at least twice, the workload is terrible! :p
I'll give you that a lot of it is luck, mind. I have had a couple of clogs that were a pain, although at least one of those was bad filament.
 
King Damager said:
Well true, and I’m broadly ok with some maintenance. But everything does suggest they’re more plug and play, and I probably spend more time maintaining the Ender at the moment than I do printing…
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Put it this way. I've got an Ender 5 Pro and the upgrade parts for it (new controller, new hotend extruder combo) and I bought an X1C because the reason I wasn't getting on with doing the upgrade was clearly just because I knew I'd need to print parts to complete the upgrade once I'd taken apart the printer. Ender is still sitting there and I bought an A1 Mini as well. Turns out, I just want to get on with printing stuff and seeing how badly I've got the 3D design wrong :D
 
A1 Mini is good so far. Smaller print volume 180x180x180 vs 256x256x256 (minus exclusion area) but I've got the X1 for that. Mainly use it for prototyping stuff while I've got the X1 running longer jobs or multi-colour. That's why I didn't go for the AMS Lite - small and quiet was the aim....that and cheap :D The nozzle wiper is a definite improvement over the X1....in that it actually works. Dead easy assembly: remove from box, undo lock screws, tighten bed screws and that's about it
A1 (non-mini) could be a better fit for larger build volume - really depends what you want to print. Significantly quieter than X1 as well.
 
I like it; works nicely. Is it the best choice? Well, that depends (sorry!) on what you want to print. The Mini is...well, mini'er than the A1 so you get 180x180x180mm rather than 256x256x256. Is that a problem? Depends how big the brackets are that you want/need to print. The one thing I would say is when you order it, add the 0.4mm hardened steel nozzle to the order as you'll need it as soon as you want to print carbon-fibre reinforced filament (or anything abrasive) which you might want to do if we're talking brackets that hold any amount of weight. My filament shelf brackets (see previous posts) are PETG-CF and holding about 15kg quite happily.
 
For the sake of £11, I'd add one anyway - at worst it's a spare. Your potential issue with Gridfinity is printing the actual grids. How big do you need them to be? You can get around it by dovetailing some chunks of grid together as long as either that's done for you in the design (I haven't looked for a while) or you can edit them yourself. Other than that, how long do you need the modules to be? Just looking at my 6" calipers and a module for those wouldn't fit on a Mini but would on an A1, P1 or X1. You can sometimes eke out a little extra length by rotating the part so it's diagonal but the width of the part dictates how well that works. I'm not trying to say a Mini is no good, just that it's something to check first.
The default bed on the Mini (and I would think the A1 as well) is textured. Have a think if that presents a problem for your prints (can't see it would but worth mentioning) and if so, order a smooth one.
 
I've had quite good results from Sunlu PETG. The only whinge I would make is that the colour isn't all that regular. Black is fine but grey is a bit variegated and white isn't the whitest of whites. Generally prints well though. If you're running an AMS, you want to avoid anything that comes on a cardboard spool (Overture, for example) as they're a pain you could do without. If you're just running off a holder, it's less of a problem. Tinmorry wasn't bad for cheap too but does need drying. Ziro were good too for both PETG and PLA-CF. Can't say I print much PLA so can't offer you any good opinions on that....other than do buy loads of colours of the filament you're not going to use *facepalm*
 
Then avoid cardboard spools unless you want to be re-spooling filament using either

Pastamatic - Filament Spool Winder for Bambu Lab X1C/P1P AMS (level winder with self reversing leadscrew) by GekoPrime | Download free STL model | Printables.com

Mechanical transfer device for respooling filament. Prints on a single plate. Open source, CAD files available | Download free 3D printable STL models
www.printables.com www.printables.com

V-Spooler by Fyrby Additive | Download free STL model | Printables.com

A filament re-spooler optimised for re-spooling to Bambu & Extrudr spools in a vertical arrangement. | Download free 3D printable STL models
www.printables.com www.printables.com

Yeah, technically you can print rims for some of them but then sometimes they're too wide and don't run smoothly etc. Best to avoid if you can.
Also you want to print the release button for the AMS

Bambu Lab AMS Hub PTFE button by STprinting | Download free STL model | Printables.com

Simple button to make removing the PTFE tube from the AMS buffer a little easier. | Download free 3D printable STL models
www.printables.com www.printables.com

and avoid unplugging the data/power cables as much as possible as they wear out quite fast and then you get the AMS blinking all red when you turn on.

The scraper is good too.
makerworld.com

Bambu Scraper - Honeycomb by apex3D

After getting tired that all plastic scrapers are done after one use I finally decided to use metal scraper that came with the machine. however I did not particularly like the design of the original scraper BambuLab provides on microSD card/website - see model here. I decided to model my own...
makerworld.com makerworld.com
 
Some bed surfaces are better than others and some are geared towards specific filaments. If you're not using glue, cleaning the bed may help. The classic is a wipe with IPA but if you're using PETG, you may find it works better to occasionally (at least when problems occur) wipe down with a most cloth with a dab of Fairy liquid (Dawn if you're Stateside) and then wipe (or rinse under a tap if appropriate) with clean water. It gets rid of some sort of oil that the IPA won't touch.
 
Just be careful with the scraper - it's really good but also easy to damage your bed with. The side with the heads of the screws goes against the bed pretty much flat to the bed.

@Vimes It's probably the Bambu Studio as a slicer. Another option is Orca Slicer which is a fork of Bambu Studio, which is a fork of Prusa Slicer.
There is a filter you can make/buy called a BentoBox which might be of interest for what you want.

Both of you may find that you want to put the printer further away from you. I ended up putting mine on the other side of a stud wall and now it's basically silent :D Can be annoying if you're trying to work next to it otherwise.
 
I'm not sure if the P1S has the lidar option to auto-calibrate. It's certainly possible to do it manually but in case it's useful, the auto-calibration results I get for Sunlu PETG are: K: 0.025 Flow: 0.887 (black), 0.897 (white), 0.917 (grey) so maybe go for 0.9 as a start point.


Vimes said:
Here you go, many links branch off from these...
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I'll summarise all of that for you....and let me know if I'm wrong, I'd quite like to be :D

PLA: good for decorative stuff, fairly quick (the high-speed stuff in particular), cheap and easily available in many colours. But, melts/bends if you use it in a car (although, probably not in winter!), tends to snap/shatter if pushed too far.

PETG: stonger, easy to print, maybe not as many colours. More UV resistant. Higher melting point so useable in cars. More flexible (less rigid) which can be a pro or a con - you want a flexi-hinge or a snap-lock and this is for you, you want something that doesn't bend, not so much. More rigid if you make it bigger. Most other stuff you'll wonder why you bothered and come back to this!

ABS: smellier, prints awfully without a heated chamber (active preferably but passively heated at min), still warps horribly, pain to print. Stong and with higher melting point but not very UV resistant (apparently).

ASA: The supposed golden evolution of ABS that's less smelly, UV resistant and doesn't warp as much. Warps horribly - surprise! It's possible to glue it down and I found that solid base layers worked better than solid followed by infill. Still a pain and no massive benefit over PETG...which is cheaper and easier and you'll wonder why you bothered.

Nylon: Haven't tried it. Good for things like gears as it's strong and a bit slippery. Supposed to soak up water like a sponge so a drier is a must.

PLA-CF: Needs a hardened nozzle as it's abrasive. Looks nice but isn't really much stronger. The Ziro PLA-CF printed very nicely. More of a matt finish.

PETG-CF: Eryone's was a pain - really dribbly. Bambu's wasn't as bad but still needed a little care by slowing down on some of the top layers so it stuck down to the infill properly. Very stong though -currently storing 17 spools in storage containers (picture in an earlier post) on shelf brackets made of this.

PET-CF: (note lack of G) Very high temp tolerance, expensive. Good if you need the temperature tolerance - hits about 200°C if I remember correctly.

ABS-GF: Supposed to be a lot better than ABS in terms of warping and dimensional accuracy. Got some, haven't tried it yet.

Glow in the dark: Meh, it's all new safe stuff so it won't glow like you remember from your childhood. Shine a UV torch (from your favourite online supplied) at it and it will charge and glow a bit...just don't expect it to glow brightly for very long before recharging.
 
They can all be used to print parts that don't quite fit....no prizes for guessing how much swearing is currently going on! Oh, also....using a hammer to 'encourage' them to fit, can result in the part splitting and producing more colourful language :rolleyes:
 
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