3D Printing - whether to buy, what to buy and how to use it?

[mickoo]

Agree. Maybe not everyday though, but often enough. I meant to say the same to you about the numberboards on the UP c44ac's. Never knew that UP had ordered them with the high boards.

Simon, I've moved away from using the 99% for most of my cleaning. I mostly use 91%, and I'm satisfied with the results. So you may not need to splash on 3 gallons of the more expensive version of IPA. Mind, it doesn't hurt anything to use the 99%, it just costs more. I'm still using the 99%, at least for now, because I had to order 2 gallons if I wanted any at all. However, I've transitioned to using the 91% for all preliminary cleaning, and only use a very small amount of the 99% at any given time for a very last quick soak before drying parts.

My experiences are with the Fast Navy Grey. I can't speak to the viability of 91% with any other brand or type of resin, so keep that in mind if you choose to use something other than the FNG.

I only use 99.9% to be fair and I find it soon gets mucky and leaves a slimy film on the prints and that's the second wash container with new clean stuff in, the pre-wash is just a filth pit to get most of the fresh resin off before taking off the print off the supports and then the secondary wash.

My last lot came from Amazon at just under £23 for 5 litres, I've done a quick check for 91% and at 5 litres it's a few £ cheaper but there are so many suppliers and price vary wildly depending on volume.

 

[simond]

Thanks guys, it’s an 8K.

 

[Bill Bedford]

I've moved away from using the 99% for most of my cleaning. I mostly use 91%, and I'm satisfied with the results. So you may not need to splash on 3 gallons of the more expensive version of IPA.

The cheapest IPA I've found is 99% from Lincs Products. The last batch I bought was £37.50 including next-day delivery.

 

[simond]

Thanks Bill,

it’s their website I have open!

As I’m off work with something like flu, in the less horrid moments, I’m trying to find an adequately large dog feeding mat that isn’t £25

cheers
Simon

 

[mickoo]

Lincs are a good price

 

[simond]

Installed in new home …



We’ll see how it smells before making any permanent decisions, this is my (at University) daughter’s bedroom, and is next to the airing cupboard, perpetually tropical…

The unboxing was exciting as you might expect, the quality of the packaging was far greater than I expected, really outstanding, it bodes well for the machines themselves. I’ve done the levelling and had a bit of a play with everything and I’m really impressed.

I’ve got a couple of kilos of FNG, and fifteen litres of 99%, a pack of rubber gloves and



a rather fetching set of shades.

What can possibly go wrong?

Right, cat says it’s feeding time…

 

[simond]

Ok, it’s all been sitting there for a couple of days, no resin in the tank, yet.

we’re into the “how to use it” bit of the thread title…

it’s set up, and has been levelled. Tick in that box.

Fire up Chitubox and install appropriate printer, upload settings for Siraya FNG resin, tick in those boxes too.

3D models available. Load models into Chitubox, lay out with some room around them, apply shallow angles. Auto support. Ok so far.

almost at random, discover the “Detect islands” button. There are 20. Attempt to avoid them by rocking parts slightly. Doesn’t work. Try to add some supports in likely places, not helping Detect Islands again, 18. Click the ”Delete islands” option. Detect again, there are 2. Delete and detect again, 1. re-slice, 18 islands…, delete and detect again, 2 islands…. This seems to be going round in circles!

am I missing something?

 

[Big Train James]

At a minimum, I think we need to see a screen grab of the part you are trying to support, in chitubox as you have it oriented. It will be nearly impossible to solve otherwise.

Additionally, if you would like to post the stl file and/or the .chitubox file, I could open them and take an look.

I suspect those types of files may not be on the list of allowed files. Adrian may be able to add them to the list, or a posted Dropbox link would work. Or we arrange for email.

Jim

 

[adrian]

am I missing something?

Sorry can't help with the details - apart from the fact I struggled as a newbie with Chitubox and found it easier to get along with Lychee, Lychee Slicer for SLA / Resin 3D printers

 

[Big Train James]

Additionally, I will say that Ithink Chitubox is a poorly executed program, and I don't fully trust the results of its automatic analysis tools. As an example, I will occasionally see "damaged model" messages when I open an stl. A run through the repair tool will indicate all sorts of things wrong, including issues that can't exist like reversed faces. I'm using a solid modeler, which precludes that from happening. So I tend to take results with a heavy dose of salt.

 

[simond]

To answer my own question, yes, I was, and RTBM might be good advice….

 

[mickoo]

Err, what's detect islands

Never heard of that and it's not in my Chitubox (free) that came with the machine, never heard of it, never used it, probably not needed?

 

[Arun Sharma]

I'm inclined to agree with Mickoo - My version of Chitubox V1.8.1 [a free one] doesn't appear to have that either although there is a note in the bottom RH corner of this screenshot [Routemaster rear dome] saying [correctly] that there were no islands.

 

[Big Train James]

The circled button on the slicing page should be island detection, even on the basic version. Should be, since the Chitubox site says island detection is available on both the pro and basic versions. I only have the pro version here, so can't double check availability on the basic one, but the icon matches that on the pro version.

As to what it does, it should find any unsupported areas of the model that will begin to print before they are connected to a properly supported area. Theoretically any unsupported island bits won't be attached to anything, and will end up in the vat somewhere rather than on the model. Apart from resulting in an incomplete print, the loose parts can damage the rest of the model or the FEP film if they get mushed between things.

The pro version has a similar feature called Suspend Detection that is part of the Support tab features. As near as I can tell, it does the same thing as the Island Detection, just at a different point in the process. To mind, this is really where the feature belongs, rather than as part of the slicing function, since unsupported areas would logically be fixed during the support process.

 

[mickoo]

Oh there it is.......

I tried it on a successful sliced and printed model, it told me there were 4 islands, it didn't tell me where they were (user error?) but kindly offered to take them away.......if I knew where they were, then I might just be able to make that reasoned decision......but I don't so that function is just about useless.

If you auto support it already tells you islands it cannot support by automation, there's little grey lines to highlight them, just add supports there and be done, also, the areas that need supporting are also highlighted in red (egg sucking), the brighter the red the more support, experience tells me that's not always accurate.



I always auto support then remove or add according to my whim, tip placement on critical edges is always important.



Auto support often places tips (red circle) that go outside of the face that needs supporting, they cross two faces, when removed the resultant hole is much larger and impacts the non sacrificial face. Moving it slightly inward (green circle) keeps the support on one face, the resultant divot is smaller and wholly on a sacrificial face that'll get sanded.

 

[simond]

Thanks all,

I’m using version 1.9.4 of the free program. Yes, it’s the buttons top left as James notes. I’d worked out what it does, but finding the faulty pixels (voxels?) didn’t appear to work. It does work, but it just takes more time than I expected. Once I could find & see the actual pixels, I could make sense of why they are islands, and what to do about it. I’ll post some screenshots after work.

On the time point, I’m using a decent gaming laptop, a Dell 15” G5, and it gets bogged down. More RAM required, I think.

 

[Boyblunder]

Thanks all,

I’m using version 1.9.4 of the free program. Yes, it’s the buttons top left as James notes. I’d worked out what it does, but finding the faulty pixels (voxels?) didn’t appear to work. It does work, but it just takes more time than I expected. Once I could find & see the actual pixels, I could make sense of why they are islands, and what to do about it. I’ll post some screenshots after work.

On the time point, I’m using a decent gaming laptop, a Dell 15” G5, and it gets bogged down. More RAM required, I think.

Simon, I have the same laptop with Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-9300H CPU @ 2.40GHz and 8 GB of RAM. No problems with Chitubox v1.9.3 unless something else is running at the same time. This morning mine has updated to v1.9.4 so hoping that doesn't cause me the same problem. I'm with Mickoo, as always his advice is spot-on. Use the auto support function first then look carefully at the model, delete the supports on edges first then add new ones anywhere indicated by the little grey rods or where you think something needs support. You will find adding supports becomes quite intuitive and almost therapeutic (I'm going nuts). Models designed with Turbocad seem to produce more "damaged model" messages than Fusion 360, Autocad etc. ; Microsoft's free 3D Builder is your friend here, it seems to be able to fix anything.

The photo shows a flat on the bottom of the gear cover of a crane assembly caused by an auto-support that was clearly visible on the screen but didn't form properly, not sure why yet. The upper circled item shows some mal-formed gear teeth, no idea how to fix that yet...

 

[simond]

thanks Robin

I'm generating the 3D in Solidworks, as that's available at work, and I can remote-in from home to use it in the evenings.

I hope to actually print something tonight...

It will be interesting one way or another!

Simon

 

[Mike Trice]

It might be worth installing uvtools which is a freebe.

 

[simond]

Oh dear…

ran the print for 2h36m of the predicted 2h49. At this point I could see there was nothing attached to the build plate so stopped it and cleared up. I think I know what went wrong. There was a film on the bottom of the build plate which needed to be removed . What did I say about RTBM….?

there was a hardened layer on the FEP, so it had been trying.

I’ll repeat the levelling and have another go on Friday.