Ball Hopper Monitor - Casting Project

Jasonb · Dec 4, 2024

Your facetted face problem explained and the two images show the difference using the right file type and settings can make

https://forum.bambulab.com/t/faceted-wall-face-on-circular-print/69188

GreenTwin · Dec 4, 2024

Cool, thanks for that trick.
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GreenTwin · Dec 4, 2024

Still going like the energizer bunny.
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GreenTwin · Dec 4, 2024

Print is progressing slowly, but the surface finish seems to be pretty good, so that is a fair tradeoff I guess.
We will see what happens as the curve progresses.
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GreenTwin · Dec 4, 2024

This thing is big (almost 8 inch diameter).
Not sure if the print will finish on one roll of filament.
The Prusa is suppose to recover if it runs out of PLA.
Surface finish so far is not bad.
The very long print time is making me rethink the corebox idea.
Two coreboxes = approaching 3 days of printing.
I guess it is not tying me up by printing, so maybe we let it print whatever.
I need larger filament rolls on this machine.
Wall thickness looks about right.
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GreenTwin · Dec 4, 2024

A hand included for scale.
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GreenTwin · Dec 4, 2024

Has anyone tried to bead-blast a PLA pattern ?
Seems like that may even out the grooves, and perhaps give a uniformly rough surface that could be shellacked and sanded.
It may also close the grooves.
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GreenTwin · Dec 4, 2024

I used the sanding sponge on the first misprint piece, and it cleans up pretty well, even on the beaded area.
The 2 inch diameter disk and slow speed make it pretty easy to get into tight spots/curves.
The sponge sort of scuffs/melts the ridges off the top, and fills in the valleys.
Very slow rpm it the key to using a sanding sponge on PLA prints.

The faceted surface is rather a pain, but hopefully I can find an option in SW to cure that, and buff that out of this pattern/and or the permanent aluminum pattern.

The print is slowly getting done, and is going faster as it progresses up in height.

This has 10% infill, and that seems to be very strong since the surface is curved.
I have resorted to drilling a hole and epoxying in a wood dowl, to use as a screw pulling point on 3D printed patterns, and I may have to do that with this pattern.
Hopefully I only need to pull it once.

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petertha · Dec 4, 2024

Because your shape is spherical, I wonder if the 3DP surface could be improved using a dedicated sanding block tool of suitable size, which has a matching cup profile dedicated to that shape? It would be difficult to get a 2D abrasive sheet to conform to a full inside domed profile, but I was thinking more like an outer, annular ring of rubber sheet backing + abrasive. Say 1" perimeter ring of abrasive for an 8" diameter sphere the inner part does not contact. But you model the contact area truly spherical but compensating for the thickness of foam rubber sheet backing + abrasive paper sandwich. For example, if you've ever seen how balls are made, that kind of principle.

GreenTwin · Dec 5, 2024

petertha said:
Because your shape is spherical, I wonder if the 3DP surface could be improved using a dedicated sanding block tool of suitable size, which has a matching cup profile dedicated to that shape? It would be difficult to get a 2D abrasive sheet to conform to a full inside domed profile, but I was thinking more like an outer, annular ring of rubber sheet backing + abrasive. Say 1" perimeter ring of abrasive for an 8" diameter sphere the inner part does not contact. But you model the contact area truly spherical but compensating for the thickness of foam rubber sheet backing + abrasive paper sandwich. For example, if you've ever seen how balls are made, that kind of principle.

View attachment 162141

That is a very cool machine !
Most interesting.
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GreenTwin · Dec 5, 2024

I am watching ytube videos about how to use supports effectively in Prusa slicer.
One of the things I learned is that the supports I turned on "everywhere" in this second print attempt added over 8 hours to the print, as can be seen in the summary in the upper left of this Slicer page.
I pretty much used stock settings for the Slicer, but turned on "supports everywhere", and reduced the infill to 10%.
I am using Prusa Slicer Ver. 2.8.1.
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GreenTwin · Dec 5, 2024

I imported my STL file into the Prusa slicer again, so I can look at different options.
This time I sliced it without supports, and it gave me a warning message, which can be seen on the lower right.
The table on the upper right is color keyed, and correlates with the colors in the half-pattern object shown on the platter.
The slider bar on the right can be moved up and down to show the slicing process as it progresses through the 3D model.

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GreenTwin · Dec 5, 2024

Sliding the bar on the right, and rotating the piece allows you to see inside of the part, and the color coded inner details of fill, etc.
You can see that there are no supports underneath this model.
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GreenTwin · Dec 5, 2024

Turned on supports everywhere, and changed the infill from the default 20% to 10%.
You can see the support material looking from below, in green, and see that there is a significant amount of it (over 8 hours worth).

I changed to "suport on build plate only", but the program used the same amount of support material apparently.
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GreenTwin · Dec 5, 2024

I changed to "support for enforcers only", and it appears to have eliminated the support material.
Total print time changed to about 18 hours.
Using "supports everywhere" creates a 28 hour print.
So if I don't need supports, then I could save 10 hours on print time for this part.

It does not give me an error message about missing supports in this unsupported slice, so it makes me wonder if supports are really needed on this part.
The test "dog" print did not have any supports at all, and it hadlots of overhang all over it.
I need to find the dog file, pull it into the slicer program, and look at the settings that were used.
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GreenTwin · Dec 5, 2024

I am going to choose a different layer height in my slicer test, to see what that does to the print time.

Here is some info I found on layer height.
The current water hopper print is using a 0.15 mm layer (I think); I will have to verify that.
Using the finest layer setting would explain the long print time.
This print does seem more fine on the surface lines than the dog print.
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GreenTwin · Dec 5, 2024

This printer will print some exotic items, assuming you know how to model such things (I don't).
This is a sample file.
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GreenTwin · Dec 5, 2024

This is the JasonB flywheel settings, which I think were 0.25 mm on one side, and 0.15 mm on the opposite side.
8 hours on first print, 17.5 hours on second print.

So about double the print time going from 0.25mm layers to 0.15mm layers.
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GreenTwin · Dec 5, 2024

It looks like the XL is shipped standard with a 0.6mm nozzle.

I may have to break down and read the actual Prusa XL instruction manual (heaven forbid I would have to actually read the manual, LOL).
The XL is fairly intuitive, and I have just been following the instructions on the screen that is on the front of the printer.

Info from the Prusa XL manual.

I see there is an option in the pop-up menu for "paint-on supports".
I will have to look at that.
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GreenTwin · Dec 5, 2024

Discusses infill amounts of 5-20%, layer thickness, supported import file types, etc.
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Ball Hopper Monitor - Casting Project

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