Can anyone tell me why my prints do not adhere well? I can pull apart the print after it is finished and there are sometimes “cracks” in the print, like it warped. Solidoodle2 with ABS, 1.75mm. Is there a certain setting I should be paying more attention to? Thanks!
Some things to look for. Temp to low, Extrusion to low, may need to add sides to your bot to keep the air from blowing in. Did you calabrate?
Yes. I have sides also. It’s mostly on prints that make a wall, not solid, rounded prints. If that makes sense.
Did you do Ian’s calibration’s?
No. I will look that up tho…
This is the correct page.
Awesome! Thanks
If your part has thin walls with no flat bottom surface, then you don’t have much surface area to get proper adhesion to the print bed. You might want to add a brim.
I assume by “cracks” you’re talking about delamination. On tall ABS prints it is a known problem. It is caused by the temperature differential. One solution is to use an enclosure over your printer to keep the heat in. FYI professional FDM machines like Stratasys use a heated chamber (to 70ºC I believe).
If you’re not willing to go with an enclosure yet, I’ve read that what helps is making a skirt as high as your part. This more or less effectively walls the heat in. Of course it uses a little more plastic doing so.
BTW the enclosure doesn’t need be complex. Some people have been using cardboard boxes.
Do you use anything to help adhere to the bed? I typically use extra hold hairspray and it works very well. Some people will also use a mixture of dissolved ABS in acetone, and wipe the build plate with it before printing.
Aluminum foil is what I use for the first 10 inches of my Rostock Max during the winter.
Besides hair spray and abs+acetone=abs_juice, there is also washable glue (I use Elmers washable glue).
What slicer? Cura sometimes does too thin of infill for me.
Using a perimeter thickness of 1-2mm will make your parts alot sturdier. Some have told me that they do not use infill at all on most of their prints because their walls are thick enough to handle any stress on the part. I imagine there are still times when they need support material though.
Be careful to use the correct temperature. Too high or too low and your part will not turn out well.
I’ve had the same problem printing my tall camera bodies. I solved the problem by getting the extrusion temp high enough to bond the layers and enclosing the sides with clear plastic (I found no difference between thick plastic and thin plastic - the key is to stop drafts). Ultimately I enclosed my Solidoodles in a wire rack with foam around the sides and a ceramic heater for extra cold days. No more cracking and little warping (original hot end) or no warping (E3D hot end). Pic here: http://pinholeprinted.com/?p=1853
I’ve noticed that printing thin walls sometimes make them hollow. Hollow thin walls are very fragile. I’m using a 0.35mm nozzle and printing 1.6mm walls with default slic3r settings means 2 perimeters on each side of the wall, which leaves a 0.2mm between the outside and inside perimeters. This is apparently to narrow to fill. For long and high thin walls, I’ll start tweaking extrusion width to a 1/x fraction of the wall thickness.
@Hannes_Lilliefeldt I use 3 perimeter walls at 20% infill minimum for my camera bodies.
Thank you all for the help. I’m printing at 190 temp, maybe I’ll turn that up. I’m still fairly new to 3d printing, so I appreciate the help.
ABS at 190? Not 230?
Yes, everything I read about the solidoodle said not to run it that high. Unless I listened to the wrong people…
I’m not on a solidoodle, I just reacted on the 47 centigrade difference between our temperature for extruding ABS.
Everything I read said not to exceed 210 on a solidoodle 2