The New 3D Printing Thread

[Super]

eww..still not 3D printing for dummies yet. Too much for me to absorb but I can wait until it keeps getting simpler.

Question: Weren't the earlier 3D printers enclosed with a door and now they all look like they are open framed. What was it about the early ones that had to be enclosed?

Several factors around the enclosures Super.  Firstly before the rise of PLA the main material in use was ABS.  While ABS is generally stronger when printed correctly it suffers from several problems, the level of detail is not as good as PLA, it needs much higher bed/nozzle temperatures to work properly, it also suffers from 'warping' if it cools too quickly as well as delamination of the layers.  Having the printer enclosed you can control the temperature more accurately and allow the model as well as individual layers to cool more slowly thus reducing the chance of warping and layer seperation.

With the growth in popularity of PLA the need for an enclosure have pretty much disappeared, the filament melts at a lower temperature and it does not suffer from shrinkage, so you don't have to worry about drafts or temperature fluctuations as much.  It also has the added advantage that you can produce the printers at a lower cost as there is no overhead of the cabinet/fans etc...

Having said that one popular practice for people with printers such as the Ender 3 or other similar Prusa based designs is to buy a couple of 'Lack' tables from Ikea, mount one on top of the other and enclose the part between the two printer tops with perspex sheeting or similar, this allows people to effectively build an enclosure very cheaply relatively speaking and make the printing of ABS if you need its good properties much easier than in an open printer.  I mean you can print ABS on an open frame model as I've done it, you just have to be very careful with the positioning of the printer to avoid drafts, turn off the cooling fans etc... and run at much higher temperatures which can themselves cause issues unless you upgrade to an all metal hot end...

Phew, and I was trying to make that easy lol!

Should have just put "you don't need an enclosure unless you print a lot of ABS material"

[Super]

Thanks for the explanation Nigels. I always assumned that when 3D printers were in their infancy that there was a chance for hot plastic to splatter or explode if not done right and it was necessary to enclose the machine to protect oneself and property....obviously, now, I know I was wrong.

To a degree you are not wrong, there are lots of moving parts and some very hot parts that little hands shouldn't touch, so if intended for educational establishments it is still normal to have printers with cabinets.  Some even have a safety switch so that if the door is opened the print pauses.  But its like many things, changes occur for many reasons over periods

Continuing to 'bed in' and generally test out the new CR-10S I decided to print out some of the buses that were included as part of the model of the ferry (see above).  How well these would come out I wasn't sure as they are pretty small.  Well as you can see from below the CR10-S has done marvellously with these, producing superb detail and accuracy and not even at its highest resolution (I used 0.12mm layer height), I added a standard SD card to give an idea of scale

[Super]

Holy cow, without that Micro Card there I wouldn't have thought them to be so small. The detail is very nice for something printed so small without much stringing either. Question though, with the blob of plastic on the bottom doesn't that make it hard to remove from the image?

They're actually quite easy to get off the raft, you specify how close to the raft the actual model is printed and the raft flexes, so it can be removed easily

Here's a couple more pics with them removed and two of them with the wheels fitted - oh yes and if you look closely you'll see that there are even seats inside them lol!

Ok, a bit of a surprise announcement for you today, but following hot on the heels of my completion of the 'Daisy' model I have ANOTHER to present to you, this time it is (currently) modelled as a slightly modified 'real life' locomotice known as a 'Manning-Wardle'.  This is modelled to fit on a 'Salty' chassis and will soon have available a 'face' as well as the normal smoke door as an option.  Anyway without any further ado I'll let the pictures do the talking;

First a picture of the initial prototype, unfortunately as well as a few weak points the smoke stack also proved to be too weak and snapped off during printing;


This is a picture of the 2nd prototype with the weak points corrected and a slightly stronger smoke stack added;



and here is the final version, for this version I made a few more tweaks to the smoke stack, increased the size of the buffer heads, added a slot in the roof for the power switch, slit in the back for the chassis tab, created a small switch extender and a few other little mods.  As you can see this fits the chassis perfectly.  Next I will look to paint one to show you how it may look completed.  I should add the black roof and smoke stack top were only done as the yellow filament ran out just before completion of the prototype print lol!!

Superb work Nigel! Billy and Charlie are based on the MW L-class. Which particular Manning Wardle loco did you use as your inspiration?

To be honest I'm not exactly sure of the class, just had pictures lol!  Seemed appropriate for the chassis

When I add a face I think I'm going to call him Eric


Oh, I forgot to add those prototypes were printed at 0.2mm (draft mode)