I ordered a new part for the UP Plus that arrived recently and which has taken the quality of my prints to another level. It's yet another brilliant 3D printer hack, and it has me excited enough to blog about it.
The image that I've posted here is the latest version of the clip for the top rack of my dishwasher at home. The rack system is pretty terribly designed and these little hooks that clip to the wire of the rack keep on busting, so every version that I print gets a bit beefier at that point. That's a whole 'nother story though.
What I'm excited about now is the quality that I am now getting from the UP. The support material is coming away easily without leaving a trace and there is no... what is the word for this?... no herniation of the plastic on the surface of the print. Everything is just sweeeet.
It turns out that the temperature that the UP runs at is set (permanently) for the premium UP filaments (260 degrees C) which is too hot for standard ABS, which is what I like to print with.
What this $20 hack does is trick the printer into thinking that it is hotter than it really is, thus dropping the actual temperature by about 30 degrees. Standard ABS runs WAY better at this lower temperature.
The other thing I'm doing lately is running the machine in an enclosure. ABS shrinks when it cools, and will warp if its temperature varies across the print, causing it to curl up off the heated bed a little. In the worst case scenario this can cause the print to delaminate from the bed entirely, resulting in a "birds nest" of filament going everywhere. The way to stop this is to make some kind of enclosure to prevent any drafts. Currently this is a plastic storage bin straight out of Bunnings, but a more elegant plexiglass solution is in the works.
This is one of the truly great things about 3D printing - the power of the hack!
Yeah science!
The image that I've posted here is the latest version of the clip for the top rack of my dishwasher at home. The rack system is pretty terribly designed and these little hooks that clip to the wire of the rack keep on busting, so every version that I print gets a bit beefier at that point. That's a whole 'nother story though.
What I'm excited about now is the quality that I am now getting from the UP. The support material is coming away easily without leaving a trace and there is no... what is the word for this?... no herniation of the plastic on the surface of the print. Everything is just sweeeet.
It turns out that the temperature that the UP runs at is set (permanently) for the premium UP filaments (260 degrees C) which is too hot for standard ABS, which is what I like to print with.
What this $20 hack does is trick the printer into thinking that it is hotter than it really is, thus dropping the actual temperature by about 30 degrees. Standard ABS runs WAY better at this lower temperature.
The other thing I'm doing lately is running the machine in an enclosure. ABS shrinks when it cools, and will warp if its temperature varies across the print, causing it to curl up off the heated bed a little. In the worst case scenario this can cause the print to delaminate from the bed entirely, resulting in a "birds nest" of filament going everywhere. The way to stop this is to make some kind of enclosure to prevent any drafts. Currently this is a plastic storage bin straight out of Bunnings, but a more elegant plexiglass solution is in the works.
This is one of the truly great things about 3D printing - the power of the hack!
Yeah science!
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