Well, the test print worked And just to complete the expectations, the prints on the Original Photons completed as well Outside Inside These have all been washed in twice in IPA - a quick rinse in a bath of the most contaminated IPA, then a 6 min clean in the Wash n Cure and finally a 5 min stint in the ultrasonic cleaner, then allowed to dry. Next up a 2 min cure on each side, if they still feel soft (easily scratched by thumb nail) then another 2 mins - repeat until they no longer scratch (test on a non visible area - dont ask) I will say tho' 3 printers on the go and two IPA baths, I do need to build a fume cupboard, as the smell / fumes are not good - who needs covid to get breathing issues, just get a 3D printer. Paul
Test print looks good. worizit?? so can we work out why the windows are distorting on the horizontal lintel? I notice it seems to be pulling in below this? (It could be the close photo over emphasising it, as I know they are only so big!!) Otherwise they look good
Hi Andy The test print is a form of torture test, no supports with everything printed on diagnals. On the windows it appears to happen when the windows are printed vertically, if printed with the rear side printed directly on the build plate then it appears fine, unfortunately this would wipe out the recesses for the glazing. Paul
Next test print is the Doors for Leek Station - no point reprinting all the windows When Andy designs these, he prepares them for printing via Shapeways, so includes spacers etc Which are not suitable for the 3D printer. I need to split them into single items and export each item as a stl file to be included into the slicing software. the bars between the doors are to try and prvent the sides twisting, as these would require supports I have tried something different. I've created a strip between the door frame 1mm thick, but at the two edges it only 0.3mm thick During printing the first 6 layers are printed with an increased exposure time (40 seconds against the normal 2 seconds) to enhance adhesion to the build plate. As each layer is 0.05mm thick the the first 6 layers will be 0.3 mm thick, so should provide a good solid base. Once cured should be easily removed witha few cuts of a scalpel. All the doors were added to the build plate plus two blanked windows I forgot about. 4h39m is the guestimated time to print - we'll see if this was successful Paul
Only 1 blank window. Not 2... but will be a spare! looking good. Shame it won’t do the frames I designed for the printing. Took a bloody age to design.
Hi Andy which frames are you refering to, as no part of the door assemblies are missing, only the mounting frames in blue have been removed, and these would have issues, as the would have to have supports fitted. And then cut off later on. On the photon were looking at an 11h48m print v 10h36m printing direct to the plate, and a i/3 less resin Well partilal success Only one of the rear door window pieces printed, the rest failed and one of the blank windows failed - see these grey hairs are awarded not just for fadeing The base strip has worked well, the ones I tried without any bracing are splaying and may even be trying to twist. Once cured well see how well they cut off. The rear dor window pieces I will try printing flat on the bed and also vertically on the Photon. Next test may be to increase the base layer cure time. Pics to follow.
Yes the blue scaffold frame to support the parts. So many different ways etc. good luck. At least your getting results.
Hi Andy I'm trying an experiment I've sliced the door in half to give a flat surface. and extruded the thickness by 0.5 mm. The idea is to print the door flat on the build plate - this will reduce the thickness a little, the idea is to paint up two door halves and sandwich a layer of glazing in the middle. On the mono X I can get 7 doors worth on the build plate And with a print time of 11 mins we should get results back fairly quickly. Paul
No ... just cut a full size piece of glazing and stick a door layer either side - a drop of super glue on the edge will wick up between the layers and hold them together. Just going into a meeting I will post up picks then Paul
These appear a little too thick, also the widow aperture isn't as crisp, I've thinned them down by the 0.5 mm, but only able to put a 0.1 mm radius on the edge. Test print started Fingers crossed
Well it’s better than trying to scratch build that many. Thanks for your efforts, which I’m sure @York Paul will echo. may be off line for a day or two at the hospital! Andy
To be fair, what you have done makes a lot of sense for resin printing. Keeps it flat but it’s quick.
Sorry, been AWOL for a wee while, but I've now had a little time to start playing - sorry experimenting. There is a bit of a learning curve and experimentation to get the settings dialled in - or even just to get it to print . I normally work off the premise learning 1 piece of software instead of half a dozen to do the same job is a better option, unfortunately with the Mono this wasn't the case as my preferred choice of software was Chitubox, and there are no profile settings available for Chitubox / Photon Mono X - , Anycubic supplies Photon Workshop 64, and I must admit, it comes with reasonable manual - well there's lots of pages and plenty of pictures - I've still got to read it , but only supports Anycubic printers - strange that, and this shouldn't be a problem for me as I only have Anycubic printers (at the moment - I'm lusting after one of the larger 13" build plate printers but at over £2.5K they will have to wait a while before I place an order). However (as mentioned on another post) I chanced across a youtube video for another free slicer program Lychee Slicer 3 by Mango software this is available for Apple, Windows & Linux, there is a paid for Pro version availble as well which has additional features and removes the Adverts that appear just prior to the slicing operation. So I now have on my desktop, and as with Anycubics own software the default settings supplied with Lychee Slicer failed to print. I kinda expected it too. Watching the printer movement appeared very slow. So here are the default Lychee settings for the Mono X The setting appeared very similar to the original settings in the Anycubic software, fortunately as shown earlier in this thread the Test print worked perfectly, so opening up the TEST.pwmx file in the anycubic software gave the se settings Comparing the settings layer thickness is the same 0.05mm or 50um Normal exposure time Lychee 1.5s, Test print 2.0s (33% longer) and the biggie Bottom Layer exposure (called Burn In Layers in Lychee) Lychee 20s Test print 40s twice as long. This setting is used to cure the initial layers to the build plate Number of Bottom layers is the same @ 6. The slow movement is caused by the speed of 1mm per sec against the Test piece 2 mm per sec (the original Anycubic profile had this even faster, and may be useful for tweaking later). One of the options within Lychee is to clone a current resin setting, the resin profile name is derived from Brand + Name + Color + Comment (if present) By addidng modified settings to the comment field of the cloned profile, and adjusting the settings I have this I now have 2 options in the resins available I'm running a test print using the modified settings, interestingly the estimated time to print for the original print was 1h42min and the modified print time is 1h16min. If this rest print is successful, then I will delete the original and rename the modified profile. I've not yet started to run tests on 0.02mm layer thicknesses, which will give finer detail, the cure time should be about half of a 0.05mm layer, but there will be approx x2.5 the number of layers to print. On the Mono X with such short cure times this will make a big difference, on the original Photon the difference is less apparent as the cure time is approx 18sec per layer. I will post results when the print has completed. Paul
YES!!!! All 10 successful - I have my new base settings, now I know the estimated time is incorrect, on the Original Photon that was down to the light of delay - you can reduce it to anything you liked, but below a certain time - 6 sec for the original Photon the build plate can't cycle up and down so the delay time just gives an incorrect time. But thats an easy fix, and will be done after the raise / lower speeds have been optimised. I can see 1 error and its on most of the printsthe bottom right hand end of the sill is missing. This can be fixed by adding an additional support to the end of the sill. That'll be a job for tomorrow - or should I say this evening Paul
A bit further progress As the settings worked for the small windows, I decided to do tests on the larger windows with surrounds Additional supports added to the edges of the sills. Also the support bases were an absolute nightmare to release from the build plate - good news is the cure time was good, bad news the ally build plate will score when a knife blade has to be used to force them free. To counter this I added a 20 degree taper to the support bases (defined within the support section of the software). A 3 hour print later Not all good Good news - all the print bases were completed, however the front row the windows detached, 2nd row one failed the other the warped, the rest completed, however the sills show some tapered edges towards the edge - not all on the same side. Bad news I have to clean the FEP sheet . Luckily my 1" bristle paint brush is stiff enough when working with the IPA to dislodge the cured resin from the FEP. If it hadn't worked then its down to the plastic spatula, and hope you don't mark or damage the FEP sheet, which would then need replacing - the last thing you want is a hole, no matter how small in the sheet, as that will leak onto the screen and cure in place. After cleaninf the FEP sheet with IPA, I then use a Spectacle and Lens wipe, firstly on the screen, then on the underside of the FEP sheet, and finally the top side of the FEP sheet. As is was the front side (or any single side) that had the worst issues, my first action was to Level the build plate. Now in true fault finding manner, I decided to re-print the file, I am expecting there to be some errors down to supports - probably will need to increase the number and / or make them heavier, but I want to ensure that the levelling has made a difference. Another 3 hour 18 min wait ......... Paul
and the result was as expected Now these were the two worst prints, the rest are all useable, there are a couple that have the supports have detached at the edge but the sill has printed ok. So the next print will have thicker supports, onlt thing is I don't think I need any more windows , ach it's all in the name of research - Toto do I have an R&D budget - thought not This videos may is worth a watch Paul
From the first video above, it looks like I need to increase the size and quantity of supports, as the Lychee support connections are very fine - I can confirm this, as just pulling off the supports before curing no cleaning was required. For my next test I will do some with a heavy support at each end and the middle, and some with the standard support settings but with a greater number of supports. The other bit to report was the 20 angle made removing the print bases a lot easier, I will try increasing up to 45 degree. Paul