Communications from the Scaffold universe

Discussion in 'Filament' started by Henry feldman, Jan 27, 2017.

  1. Henry feldman

    Henry feldman Well-Known Member

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    So I, as many of you know know, have been doing a lot of direct printing in scaffold for my medical simulation projects (as in the whole print is in scaffold). I have learned a lot (have never used it as a dissolvable support, but have learned a lot about supports on an all PVA print).

    So first off I have gotten the surface finish to look pretty damned good (these are "dipping dots" that we use for testing different silicone mixtures) as you can see. (no idea why the pic makes some look out of alignment. they are all square to each other)

    [​IMG]

    I did this by tweaking a few things. First off the worry about the PVA burning seemed to be when it goes unused while printing in your primary plastic. In my case I figured, there is no downtime in printing scaffold since scaffold is my primary plastic, so let's crank up the heat. I noted at the usual temperature you get pretty crappy interlayer adhesion, which is fine for supports (sort of) but not usable for full objects. So up we went to 230. Yes, 230. Stuff flows like butter, just lovely. Second, slow way down. I've found the top speed should be 40, and for most things slow down more. Painful? Yes. Nice surface and strong adhesion? Yes.

    [​IMG]
    The big question was what to do about supports. In the first few things I printed at 215 and 220, they came off the part terribly (ironic since the regular layer adhesion wasn't great). In the past I had tried setting the support resolution higher (4mm) in simplify 3d. So when I went to print this femoral vein, figured well that's left be with real crappy looking underside, so let's try 2mm with the new temperature and speed. And man the surface is so clean. Basically they just slid off. And at the higher temperature not a single support fell over. They actually came off almost in 2 blocks with a few pieces breaking off.

    For bed adhesion I found it sticks really well to Wolfbite Nano, in fact it helps if you've printed a few prints on it, as it will stick pretty firmly to fresh Nano to the point that it was a bit of work with a straight razor scraper to peel them off. The parts where I had previously either printed PLA or even better nGen worked more cleanly.

    hope this was helpful (although don't know how many people are printing Scaffold parts...)
     
  2. mike01hu

    mike01hu Well-Known Member

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    Nice millipede Henry! :D
     
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  3. Henry feldman

    Henry feldman Well-Known Member

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    Haha. Now forever I will see that!
     
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  4. Miasmictruth

    Miasmictruth Well-Known Member

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    I always enjoy seeing the various ways you use the bigbox for medical purposes :)
     
  5. TimV

    TimV Well-Known Member

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    Yes, superb reading all these kinds or reports.
    Only show what top printer we have running :)
     

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