Here is my first serious piece in Edge. It part of a complex 405mm diameter ring structure but is a prototype before printing in CF. Printed at 220C/75C with 200nm layers, 4 perimeters and 60% infill on the glass bed coated with 5:1 water/PVA juice. There were no major adjustments in S3D other than leaving the track width adjustement at 1.00, retraction at 1.5mm with 0.25 lift; scripts were as the Hybrid profile. It was allowed to cool completely and lifted straight off the bed. The finish is acceptaable other than S3D thinking the object was 0.5mm wider than Slic3r did using the same STL! It is not steps/mm as it is constant, as if it is over-extruding, but this is not evident anywhere else in the build as the top and bottom layers showed and the test discs for layer 1 that I posted about in the Calibration area of the forum. Also, I do not like the way S3D deals with curves as a series of straight lines, unlike Slic3r that produces a nice curve. For this trial piece I'll put up with it but I may have to revert to Slic3r for the final product. As for Edge, it looks like a big thumbs up!
Looks like the Edge performed very well, but the way S3D handled the curves looks like a major problem, is there really no way to get it to stop doing that?
That's a nice courgette you've produced! Two things I recognise (from printing a section of a 350mm cylinder in XT!) : 1) The origins of those straight lines are in fact the Mesh from your CAD package, In S3d if you turn the Mesh preview on you'll see what I mean. Solution is to export from the CAD at a higher mesh resolution. 2) The bands - such as one might be easily distracted from by the beauty of that green & of which the most pronounced is just above the big hole - are from a Z axis that's dragging at one or more of the bearings. Confirmation comes if you examine the same band all the way around the part. You'll find that on one side it's a ridge (where it was pinched) and on the other side it's an cavity (much less visible - it's on this side that you have the dodgy bearing that's holding the bed back).
Yes. I recognise the steps from using a low resolution mesh when printing. Hard to say that it is good that slic3r change the mesh resolution, since it is not true to the mesh. Please can you check if it is the resolution of the mesh. Since it is good to know if there is a problem with S3D.
I'll do a few layers with Slic3r to check again as I don't have the last iteration of this piece but from memory I did not notice the issue. Also, I'll check to see if I can change the mesh resolution as that is a new variable to me.
I'll look at mesh resolution when I find out how! The bushings are the stock ones and, although I went through all the engineering techniques to get smooth running, and early test pieces were OK, but one Y axis bushing has developed a tantrum and it looks like the Z's are coming out in sympathy! This is agravated by auto-levelling that continuously moves the Z-axis so a rough spot in the bush will make the issue worse. I'm on the lookout for Misumi's here in the UK now. Also, you may have noticed some ringing from the holes and edges, so I'll tweak the speed/acceleration to try and counter the resonance. I have to say that the results are still a world away from my old kit i.e. better, so I am quite happy. Anyway, these delights are all part of getting into step with a new printer. Edit: I found the mesh settings in SolidWorks and it was defaulted to Auto giving about 3000 triangles using 10 degrees as the minimum angle; I set this to 1 degree and the deviation tolerance to 25 microns and there are now 57000 triangles and that appears to be nearer the mark in NetFab for a better finish. I don't understand why my old setup gave a better result as it was the old STL???
The need for a fine mesh depends on the shape of the part. A cube can be represented with very few mesh squares.... a sphere needs rather more. And then a big sphere will need even more, because the ?triangles used to approximate its surface will be visible to the eye if there are few of them. Here you are printing a surface that is both curved and large so you need a commensurably high number of angular shapes to render a credible result. In Simplify 3D chose View/Wireframe to visualise the Mesh on your model. You'll probably see that Solidworks has generated it intelligently i.e. if there is a big flat area then there are very very few triangles.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction and it makes a lot of sense now that I've seen it. This will have effect on diameter accuracy on round object and hole accuracy too. I also wonder if this will affect the width error I am seeing as this is also on the curve but height is perfect because it is set by layer height.
Yeah I max out my export settings when exporting stls regardless of part, I think NX does a decent job at exporting, the flat faces are typically large triangles while the round faces are very small triangles, and can hardly tell. Good looking part!
I found it, it wasn't the same STL. The original trial STL was produced on my old CAD system and the mesh was a lot tighter but, thanks to @R Design , I now am aware of the issue in how to view it and so correct it! What amazes me is that I never fell over this in the several years of 3D printing; you learn something new in this field everyday!
Mike is there an advantage to the 5:1 juice vs. stick? I've only got stick in PVA (I have the WolfBites for other compounds)
@Chase.Wichert answered part of the question Henry but it is what I have always used and it has not let me down . . . yet! I also include a drop of washing-up liquid to assist wetting but it's not essential. I always clean the bed after with ethyl alcohol and a scraper to ensure a good layer 1. At the moment I am printing CF20 on it at 250C/75C and the test pieces held on OK and the big print is progressing. On this glass it is important to let it cool completely to hopefully minimise stress relief . . . in me more than the glass!
OK, so completed my first Edge print (well second, the first we aborted on layer 5 due to lifting and a giant snot-ball). However the part failed mechanically (literally the pin on the base part tore off when I pushed the rotating part over it). This is a prototype surgical instrument, but can't go into more detail right now. Learning points: Had to back off greatly on the extruder ratio (0.85) as otherwise made a GIANT snot ball on the nozzle and little snot balls everywhere with lots of drool I use WolfBite for PETG and per the directions had bed Temp 100C which stuck great, and released well (well except the brim which was really, really stuck). The first attempt on 80C with PVA just peeled up on the part on the left. 225C seemed a perfect temperature So the big learning point I made was shrinkage. The prior prototypes on this object were PLA which was much less thermal-dimensionally stable, so the parts fit like a glove. When I tried to press the 2 parts together it broke (peeled apart in a single layer). This was partly that I did 20% infill instead of 40% but also when we put the micrometer on, the pin is almost 0.5mm larger (i.e. didn't shrink) compared to PLA. So I will have to change my CAD calculations. This stuff drools like crazy, leave it docked until you are ready to go... Seemed to like 20% fan for first 3 layers, 50% then on, with 70% for bridging
Intresting to hear about this. Especially the drooling. I had the impression that edge was good at that... I.e. less oozing then other filament.
Just leveling the bed left my paper covered in PETG, and leaving it at the home point for a minute or 2 and I had a oozy mess starting. I was surprised.
I had no such problems with my Edge excursion and PVA but mine had larger bed contact. You will find that all arcs are printed over/under size external/internal due to the way the slicers work but linear dimensions are excellent! It's a real pain in the butt having to make CAD adjustments of 0.3mm or so to arcs and holes because the slicer can't manage it! I often revert to the file!! I'll post pictures of my CF20 prints. They are not as good as the Edge and the nozzle behaviour is not good!
That's not the pain in the butt, the pain in the butt is you have to print it to find out if it was the right amount, since it is voodoo rather than a consistent value...
NB Eastman have 3 different Amphoras (AM 1800, AM3300, AM5300) that are used for each of ColorFabb's XT, nGen and HT. My hunch - given it's basic properties - is that Edge is based on the one used for nGen. http://colorfabb.com/materials
