Before making a first print of a 5 stage axial compressor, I thought I’d experiment a bit using a single stage ducted fan. This is a rotor printed in PLA, encased in HIPS dissolveable support material. Looks like I still have some Slic3r setting tuning to do… The PLA seems to be over extruding leading to poor surface finish (I think) and the HIPS is over extruding on tool change (I think). I need to get some limonene.
Awesome!! I can’t wait to see it after dissolving the hips. Will you sand it? Need to balance it?
Yup, some sanding and balancing will be required. I tweaked my slic3r and am reprinting to get the better quality I know I can get.
Are you printing the shroud as well? What tolerances are you gunning for- the gap between shroud and blades?
PLA, right now these are just testing prints, but I’ve printed the shroud or duct before: http://tinyurl.com/ondv2so. The clearance between the rotor blades and duct is 0.5 mm.
The problem with the above print I believe is related to this bug in Slic3r 1.2.9: https://github.com/alexrj/Slic3r/issues/2960
One thing I would recommend from printing and dissolving HIPS is to have no bottom solid layers and no perimeters being printed for the HIPS, this saves HIPS and means it will take less time to dissolve in limonene.
@Matt_Callaghan , interesting idea. What slicer are you using?
I am using Slic3r, it allows you to set individual settings for each STL you load in, these settings can be modified by double clicking the STL in the plater menu.
I went through a learning period while trying to print a bearing using a soluble support material.
