Saturday, November 21, 2020

One Down, Several More to Go

Back in January of this year* (though it seems like much longer), I bought my first FDM/FFF 3D printer.  It has been fun, but at times frustrating, learning about it and about 3D CAD programs, slicers, different types of parts such as hot-ends, extruders, and even nozzles.  And now, my very first roll of 1kg filament is nearing its end.

Most of it was spent on testing and tuning, though I did print out some 'preliminary' items of my own making.  My company's (current) color scheme is royal blue, and since my first roll of filament was also 'royal blue' (I like the color blue**), I created a few 3D versions of our logo and printed them out.

But I did print them out before really 'tuning' the printer, so they were not "perfect" - the bottom layers curled a bit and the small-sized lettering "cut" into the logo were partially filled.  Still, all-in-all they came out decent enough.

In order to create the 3D logos, I used a freeware version of 3D CAD.  Now, I know how to use CAD, having learned in college as part of my degree, but 3D CAD is a completely different animal.  And honestly, in my opinion, it shouldn't be.  In CAD, I know how to extend, trim, stretch, and otherwise manipulate lines and other objects - it's actually fairly simple and straightforward.  However, in 3D CAD (or so it seems to me), the process for doing so is painfully difficult and overly complicated.  Even after watching videos specifically for the same program I was using, a lot of times, I couldn't figure out how to do what I wanted to do.

Eventually, I did stumble my way through the process, but it was very, very, very frustrating.  I found myself saying things like, "I just want to do this - why is that so complicated?  If I were doing it in (regular) CAD, I'd have been done hours ago." quite frequently.

I also found it difficult to do things "precisely".  Want to stretch a line exactly 20 mm?  Not as easy as you might think it should be.  Some "3D CAD/Sculpting" programs, like MeshMixer, do not seem to have a way of doing it (at least, not that I have been able to find).  Instead, you have to grab a stretching "handle" and "eyeball" how far you move it.  In CAD, I can grab it, then type in the exact distance, and *poof* it's stretched, moved, rotated†, etc. exactly that amount.  Maybe there is a way to more precisely manipulate things in MeshMixer, but I haven't found it, yet.

And then there are slicers - programs used to take your 3D models and convert them to the G-Code required to actually be able to 3D print them.  And that is where the fun really begins.

Tuning a slicer is where "all" of the magic takes place.  What is your nozzle size?  What layer height do you want?  What speed do you want to print at?  Do you want a different layer height on your first layer?  What type of filament (material) are you using?  Do you want to use cooling, or not?  How much retraction should you use?  What temperature do you want for extruding the material?  There are but just some of the parameters you need to set in order to print.  If even one parameter is off, it could potentially ruin the print.

Fortunately, there is a lot of information available on a lot of this stuff.  Wading through it all and finding the "right" nuggets of info for your particular issue can be daunting.  But, with some patience - and some trial-and-error - you'll eventually find what works for you.

And there are several free versions of slicers out there, each with its own way of tweaking.  Sure, most of the functions are available in all of them, but some have different names or even different ways of doing the same thing.  Probably the top three (in popularity, at least) are (in no particular order), Cura, Prusa Slicer (formerly Slic3r Prusa Edition), and IdeaMaker.

Some "slicers" like Repetier Host, are not in-and-of-themselves "slicers" but rather a gateway for using certain, specific versions of other slicers.  You can use the built-in version of Slic3r, Cura, PrusaSlicer, and Skeinforge.  You can also add updated versions of Slic3r, PrusaSlicer, and Skeinforge, but no other slicers (as of this posting, at least).  So why even bother with something like Repetier Host?  Well, there are some reasons - like being able to print directly from it via USB connection - PrusaSlicer does not (currently) have an option for doing this directly.  So it can make some things easier.

It actually amazes me that some of these very well-known and popular software packages don't all have a way to directly connect to a printer to print, but still rely on slicing the G-Code, transferring it to a USB stick or SD card, plugging that into your printer, and then print from it.  Seriously - why?

In any event, my first roll of filament is almost exhausted.  But I am looking forward to exhausting many, many more rolls for some time to come.
😉
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* That would be the "confirmed critical year" of 2020, for anyone reading in the future.

** I like other colors, too, but I suppose you could say my favorite color is blue.

† To be fair, you can rotate items in MeshMixer an exact amount, if you find the 'compass' sweet-spot when you have hold of the rotate handle, but only in increments of 5-degrees (at least, so I've found).
😉

 

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