• 17 Posts
  • 562 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: July 29th, 2023

help-circle
  • Warping! Others have hit on a lot of this, so I’ll try to be brief.

    • warping is due to the plastic shrinking as it cools. This builds tension in the lower layers of the print
    • bigger prints are naturally more warp prone
    • part shape and aspect ratio also plays a role. Parts with big aspect ratios (eg much wider or longer than the other axis) are more warp prone. Parts with sharp transitions are also more likely to warp
    • different filaments are more warp prone than others. PLA is least prone, followed by PETG. ASA/ABD are the most warp prone I’ve printed so far
    • fiddling with temps and speeds can help
    • make sure you have good bed adhesion (clean bed, good first layer, etc)
    • having good bed adhesion will only take you so far. I’ve had prints pull my magnetic bed plate up
    • you can try printing a draft shield around your part (think a skirt as tall as your part)
    • IMO eclosures are the way to go for warp prone parts. You’ll need to be somewhat careful about chamber temps getting too high (this can cause nozzle clogs for PLA/PETG) or not getting high enough (ASA/ABS will still warp in a cool chamber). My enclosure has a removable lid that I pop for PLA/PETG and has insulation/bedfans/a filter for ASA/ABS









  • $1,200 is Voron and RatRig territory. Vorons cap out at 350 mm3 for build volume and 500mm3 rat rigs are $1,550. I agree that plenty of folks are probably over buy on printers, but if you want this kind of build volume the price seems reasonable - especially for a printer that ships assembled. Personally, I went the Voron route and if I wanted a larger printer I would probably either just make my 350mm taller or go the RatRig route.

    That said, high velocity on a large format printer isn’t that useful for big prints IMO. You’re probably going be running a bigger nozzle and laying down wide/tall extrusions, which means you’re probably going to be limited by how fast your extruder can melt plastic. That’s the case on my Voron with a Rapido HF with “only” a 0.6mm nozzle, 0.8mm extrusion widths, and 0.3mm layer heights.





  • 1 and 5: Either should be fine, especially if the seller is reputable and has reviews. Many sells will have a store on multiple sites, but in some cases people will resell other people’s work. See if you can track down the original creator to support them 2: I suspect everyone will want STLs they won’t have to do any processing on. What do I mean? Well, I could give you a STL for a piece that’s massively too large and would need to be split into pieces or a different STL that will be impossible to print well. I suspect print services won’t want to deal with this, will charge for it, and/or you might not be happy with the final outcome 3: If you’re paying someone to print the parts, they will likely have larger format printers. However, this might cost some $$ 5: It depends how thick the designs are and how strong you want them to be (more perimeters = stronger), but keep in mind that you’re also paying for machine time and potentially processing (eg surface finishing, support removal, etc). To get a feel for a quote without buying this design, find some cosplay armor on something like printables and use that for quotes


  • I had no idea this was even going on, so that’s a potential plus.

    Stratasys filed the two lawsuits against Bambu Lab in the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, in August 2024. The company claims that Bambu Lab’s X1C, X1E, P1S, P1P, A1, and A1 mini 3D printers violate ten of its patents. These patents cover common 3D printing features, including purge towers, heated build plates, tool head force detection, and networking capabilities.

    I had heard that Stratasys was a bit of a patent troll, but some of those claims are news to me.