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I'm really stumped on something, but I'm not sure which way to proceed on solving it. We recently got a gCreate GMax 2 with dual print heads. I'm looking at trying to do 2-color prints for enclosures we print for small electronics. The idea is I could put our logo and labels in a different color than the rest of the enclosure. Right now, my work flow is usually draw it in Inventor > Export to STL > import to Cura for print. My problem is this: I can export the text from the box as one STL, and the box itself as another. Once I get it into Cura, though, it all falls apart. Each part comes in with it's origin at its center. However, the text labels are only supposed to be on one side of the box - centering both objects puts them in completely the wrong spot. Cura has no tools to snap object faces together as far as I can tell. It's like every body else approaches this as having both models have the same origin, which maybe I'll have to do - maybe put some stylistic flourishes on all sides of the box and on the floor plate so that the origins have the same center. Is there anything else I can do? Some way to lookup the distance origin to origin in Inventor so I can manually enter the information into the grid? Some plugin I don't know about? A different slicer may have the right tool?
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Mar 3, 2020 01:26
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| # ¿ May 20, 2024 00:41 |
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anybody have experience with Gcreate Gmax 2 w/ dual extrusion or the E3D Chimera print head? I've been trying to suss out some oozing problems and nothing is seeming obvious. I've messed with retraction in general, retraction on tool change, lowering the idle tool temperature, added coasting, all the usual things but nothing is seeming to really do anything of use.
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Jul 12, 2020 22:29
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I always figured those were more for catastrophic failures like the PVA one up thread. With a recent problem i had it certainly kept from having a PLA cocoon.
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Jul 14, 2020 14:03
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The first printer we got a work was a Markforged Onyx Pro. Markforged markets themselves as industrial grade printing, and it seriously is. It’s also expensive as gently caress - we got the printer as a deal with our large format printer that does 8x6 ft graphics... I wanna say the selling price is like 7 grand. It prints basically two types of nylon and can also do fiberglass reinforcement. Markforged sells their own material, and it’s like 2x as expensive as anything else. However, I think because the control both the printer and the filament, that allows them to make really good engineering decisions because it’s a controlled environment. For all that, we consistently get great .1mm layers, a beautiful matte finish and I’ve literally never had the machine or their required proprietary slicer gently caress up. However, it also means I need to tension the belts properly every now and then, but even when it’s at its worst, we get great prints. In comparison, we also got a GMAX 2, billed by Gcreate as a “workhorse” with a huge bed. The gmax consitently has issues running the nozzle into the print surface, no matter how hard I try to fix it. We’ve fiddled with settings tons and still haven’t been able to get the same Quality at .1mm. .15 seems to be its happy zone. It’s definitely a different world.
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Aug 12, 2020 20:17
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Egads! My PLA is ruined! But what if.... I were to pass of some thingiverse pix as my own printing? Delightfully devilish!
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Aug 16, 2020 06:27
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Dumb question while we're on the topic of nozzle switches.... The manufacturer for my printer provided pre-made slicer configs for their printer for both Cura and Simplify3D. The dual-extrusion profiles are pretty much set up for using the .5mm nozzle, and I think at some point I'd like to mess around with using smaller nozzles. They do have single-nozzle profiles for .4 thru .1 sizes... I guess pretty much my best approach for starting is to copy the settings over from the single nozzle profile into a new dual profile. What are the most important things to look for? Obviously the nozzle size changes, but I'm assuming feed rate and move speed should matter. Obviously, re-level and fine tune for layer height as was discussed here. Anything else?
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Aug 24, 2020 02:09
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I use mine for enclosures and it’s crazy how much time it saves not having to hand-machine them for every 1-off design I do. I’ve also done replacement gears, Spacers, and TONS of brackets. A few custom hand tools for things as well, like a hex wrench that is hollow so that I can tighten nuts on hard to access sensors without twisting the wires.
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Aug 27, 2020 19:48
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Aurium posted:
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Sep 8, 2020 04:38
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After a lot of frustrating time, I finally realized one of my z-axis lead screws is bent. I knew something was odd when we got it, but visually couldn’t see it at the time. A few months later and I’m looking again and I’m like that’s definitely bent and I’m a moron. Hopefully fixing that up will clean up the prints a bit. At least get rid of the squeak during layer changes on the lower z levels.
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Sep 20, 2020 17:50
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I’ve been using Atomic and like it. I can tell it’s definitely better than run of the mill whatever generic brand. More consistent color and extrusions
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Sep 28, 2020 04:24
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goddamnedtwisto posted:One thing you might want to try, which I discovered purely by accident, is a sacrificial support - chuck a single support on the outer skin and across any gaps and the slicer will preferentially use that for changes of layer or skips so the stringing is all from that, which you can pull off and throw away. isn't this the same thing as a priming tower? or am I misunderstanding?
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Sep 28, 2020 21:59
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As a dumb idea, I've thought about trying to do something dumb like draw a frog in Inventor or Fusion. It'd probably be an interesting way to learn how to use some of the less-often used tools for me.
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Oct 9, 2020 03:32
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It took me like 8 hours, but I’ve finally recalibrated our dual nozzle printer at work. No more rubbing of the prints from uneven nozzles. Prints are perfectly aligned. We’re getting better prints than we got from factory settings. I’m so happy. I’ve been fighting with this thing on and off for like a year.
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Jun 18, 2021 16:41
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Ooh! I do that too. I work in the museum business - specifically, I do custom electronics and stuff for integrating w/ AV systems. Almost everything is a one-off... so 3d printing is great for it. The usual fare is enclosures and brackets. I have a standard box-pattern I use for building arduino enclosures. Here's an older enclosure I printed in Carbon-Fiber Nylon... our first Printer came as a package deal with a large-format printer (for doing 8'x4' graphic prints) and it's a Markforged Onyx Pro, so that's all it can do. We eventually got a GMax2 from GCreate, and that's what I've been using when things don't need to be heavy-duty.  On a side note, the Markforged printer is terrifyingly good. I've never seen anything that matches the dimensional accuracy and print quality. The price is steep, and the cloud-based slicer you have to use has some limitations, but I think I've only ever had 2 prints fail after 400+ parts and hundreds of hours. But yeah, I also do a lot of brackets for mounting some piece of weird bullshit to another. Braces to hold TV monitors in a faceted array correctly. Posts to hold LED light bars. Or drill jigs for potentiometers and stuff with weird hole patterns. Or Tools - I printed a weird little spooler I can put in my drill to coil up solder for my travel kit. A resistor-bending tool. A wrench for a specifically hard-to-reach nut. Unfortunately, I'm bad at remembering to take pictures. I'll try and post some tomorrow.
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Jun 24, 2021 03:16
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I have a buddy who has a Mars 2 pro and I was really impressed with it. Thinking of getting one myself, actually.
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Jul 9, 2021 17:42
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I was having a series of problems with our big dual extruder printer. Talked to the manufacturer and they said, “hey, yeah, I see you’re using simplify3D. We’ve been moving away from that in our print farm because the support and development is lacking these days. We’ve got beta configs for PrusaSlicer, try those” as part of their suggestions. I’ve only done single extruder prints so far, but it’s like a whole new printer. Gentler movements, finer work done on curves, and I swear, quieter too. Also wayyyyyy loving better organization of settings in the software.
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Jul 15, 2021 11:51
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| # ¿ May 20, 2024 00:41 |
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For awhile I had set it up so my heated build plate would cool off after like 10 layers because I figured it wasn’t needed at that point. Then I figured out my increase in print failures was due the thermal contraction making things just pop off the bed. 
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Jul 17, 2021 03:15
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