3d Printing Crew: Tugboats up in this biatch

[FritoBandito]

Just went through my Amazon purchases for 2022 for taxes. 36 rolls of filament. That probably isn't a lot compared to some of you but I don't do high volume anything. I had no idea I had bought that much.

 

[CPTMULLET]

Just went through my Amazon purchases for 2022 for taxes. 36 rolls of filament. That probably isn't a lot compared to some of you but I don't do high volume anything. I had no idea I had bought that much.

36 is a lot for any one person, especially if you’re not printing dense squares

 

[FritoBandito]

36 is a lot for any one person, especially if you’re not printing dense squares

I mean... I'm not doing a production line but whenever I come up with something cool I tend to make one for everyone. Example....

 

[CPTMULLET]

I mean... I'm not doing a production line but whenever I come up with something cool I tend to make one for everyone. Example....

I guess I meant something like: if you have a e3d v6 hot end printing at like peak flow ~15mm/s it takes roughly 15 hours to go through a spool. 36 spools is like 540 hours. But a mk3s at relatively stock speeds/accelerations isn't sustaining 15mm/s very often, not to mention all of the moves and shit during a print. Probably somewhat fair to say that's 1000+ hours of printing in filament.

don't sell yourself short, you printed a fuckin' lot for one dude just having fun

 

[CPTMULLET]

I think I printed like 2kg last year I rebuilt my v2 and just lost steam

 

[TheRider]

I don't even want to think about how much filament I've purchased in the last year.

Right now, I'm struggling to figure out optics and focus to see if I can pull off the spotlight idea. Worst case they'll be nightlights... or I'll have to hire an engineer to figure that stuff out

 

[Cicada]

I think I’ve bought about 30 spools so far — I bought 5 just last week

….And I just got my printers in Dec.

I’m regarded?

 

[FritoBandito]

I think I’ve bought about 30 spools so far — I bought 5 just last week

….And I just got my printers in Dec.

I’m regarded?

Highly.

Does that mean you wiped out all that filament or you were stocking up your selections?

 

[Dolan]

Filament is an addiction. I've definitely bought way more than I've actually used. Sometimes I see a new color or whatever and get excited and have to order it.

Some of my spools are just kind of collecting dust. I thought I would use transparent PLA more often. Same with TPU and PETG.

 

[Cicada]

Highly.

Does that mean you wiped out all that filament or you were stocking up your selections?

They’re all about half used, but I’ve been through 2 spools of black PLA and a spool of orange PETG;

right now I’m pretty much exclusively printing those PCB cases in every color to sell. There are some colors that haven’t sold at all, so I’m kinda just figuring out which ones sell and printing those colors or variants of those colors (silk, metallic, translucent, etc.)

 

[yonson]

I purchased 7 but only went through 3

 

[Cicada]

shouldve ordered the X1c sooner -- now they're OOS til the end of the month

i'm averaging a new printer a month at this rate

 

[Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan]

shouldve ordered the X1c sooner -- now they're OOS til the end of the month

i'm averaging a new printer a month at this rate

View attachment 294797
View attachment 294798

mine is finally on its way ... should have it next week to play with

 

[Cicada]

mine is finally on its way ... should have it next week to play with

nice -- i went back and forth over the last week before waking up this morning and going "fuck it"

 

[ObeyTheNoodle]

Hi OT 3D Printing Crew...

Your friendly 3D Printing noob here. Hoping I might be able to get some advice from y'all when it comes to printing CF-infused PETG. I've been rocking it with the PLA - my prints look good but for RC-car stuff that material is just too brittle to last. I decided to pick up some carbon-fiber infused (20%) PETG from Amazon (IEMAI brand) and a set of stainless and hardened steel nozzles on the recommendation of the manufacturer. Last night I tried to print a GoPro mount but it didn't go too well. Here are the steps I've taken:

-Replaced the .4mm brass nozzle with a .6mm stainless nozzle. Is this too big? The manufacturer gives conflicting info here, one area in the instructions says that I should be using at least a .6mm nozzle while another area says .4mm is okay
-I grabbed my original STL file and updated it in CURA based on generic PETG settings. These settings may actually be too high for my materials because when I was reading the reviews on the Amazon page, a lot of people were saying that the ideal temp was closer to PLA temps (200 degrees). I've played with both the PETG settings (higher temps all around) and the PLA settings with no success in either.
-I recalibrated my bed and Z-axis two times thinking that might be the issue. For some reason my Z-axis varied greatly between the two calibrations - first time it was less than 10mm from the plate which is a lot closer than I'm used to. Second time it was about 20mm. First calibration resulted in the prints coming out super stringy and the first layer wouldn't stick to well. Second calibration and the first layer didn't stick at all and I ended up with just a glob at the end of the extruder.
-Am I really supposed to use a glue-stick to help with surface adhesion when using PETG? I didn't and am wondering if might be causing an issue...
-Do the heat/fan/speed settings on the printer have any effect on the print? I thought that the GCODE file that you get after slicing provides these details for the printer/print. Curious because I noticed that under the temperature setting on the printer there is PLA (200 degrees) and ABS (240 degrees) and was wondering if I should be updating those too?

I'm going to start over with this over the weekend and continue troubleshooting but if anyone here has any tips or experience with this material, please share.

Printer is an Elegoo Neptune 3 (Ender 3 clone).

Thank you!

 

[Cold Brew]

What's everyone's go to brand for PLA filament? Is amazon basics any good?

 

[Cold Brew]

Looks like hatchbox brand has like 50,000 reviews on amazon so i'll try that out

 

[FritoBandito]

What's everyone's go to brand for PLA filament? Is amazon basics any good?

Here's what I use.
PLA: Hatchbox, Overture, Amazon Basics in that order.
PETG: Overture (really like it), Polymaker (which I think is same company as Overture), Sainsmart (Good stuff and goofy colors)
TPU: Sainsmart, Overture (TPU colors match their PETG), Hatchbox (flexy as Sainsmart and really good red), Priline (Less flexy, more durable)
Nylon: Overture (Easiest to print), Taulman3D Alloy 910 (BITCH to print but good stuff)

There are other random brands when I'm chasing specific properties like weird colors or wood infused.

 

[lowfat]

I generally only buy ESUN. I buy the refills. Haven't had to throw a filament roll in the garbage in like 2+ years.

 

[CPTMULLET]

I generally only buy ESUN. I buy the refills. Haven't had to throw a filament roll in the garbage in like 2+ years.

motherfucker you haven't printed in two years

 

[lowfat]

motherfucker you haven't printed in two years

I printed the parts for my PC cable management AND I printed a bunch of parts for 2 still non-functioning printers.

 

[borazhasleftthebuilding]

I generally only buy ESUN. I buy the refills. Haven't had to throw a filament roll in the garbage in like 2+ years.

As a Canadian where you buying?

 

[lowfat]

As a Canadian where you buying?

I buy from filaments.ca and digitmakers.ca. If I need 3d printer parts I buy from spool3d.ca.

 

[lowfat]

I also printed a shop vac attachement to connect to one of those cyclone things. Which is the only thing I've printed in 6 months.

 

[CPTMULLET]

I also printed a shop vac attachement to connect to one of those cyclone things. Which is the only thing I've printed in 6 months.

this is one of the reasons I need my printer back up and running, shop vac adapters are so expensive