Adventures in 3D printed panels.

[peps1]

Those look really good. What kind of 3d printer are you using? Have you considered maybe petg instead of abs? I've heard abs is pretty stinky while printing..

Warning, this may turn into a post about me ranting, so sorry in advance!

I'm actually using my cheapest 3D printer, an Ender 3 that I enclosure and just use for 3D printing ABS, normally print mechanical parts on it, or parts for other printers. I a big believer that a couple of years ago we reached a plateau in home 3D printing where the quality for a £100 Vs a £2000+ is minimal from a kinematics standpoint, and print quality itself can be indistinguishable from each other as the driving force in print quality has been the firmware you are running on the printers and the quality of slicer software profile. I have printers at both ends of the price spectrum and I would find it hard to say what came of what printer if I didn't know.

.....this is my last DIY printer build.



Regards PETG, I have a pathological dislike for the stuff, PET is awesome stuff, but the G part of PETG added Glycol makes for a rather unpleasant printing experience for me, I just find I can fuse to your bed if your using glass or PEI beds without a release agent, don't print well due to being so sticky, it can't bridge, it strings really badly, parts suffer from creep (as in anything under load will deform over time rather than resisting the stresses and is very flexible.

It has some upsides like being very chemical resistant, having a slightly higher Tg to PLA and is a good option for people who cant print ABS as they don't have an enclosed printer, but if you can print ABS, little need for PETG.

There is a smell with ABS, it's got a lot better over the last 5 years, old cheap ABS used to stink to high heaven, but newer higher quality ABS and ASA (mainly used in the car industry as its UV resistant) are much better when it comes to the smell, I quite like it, to me it has a slight mint smell, but I have an enclosure so it's not like it filling the whole room.

I just lost a few bed over the year due to PETG sticking and ripping chunks out of them, and really don't want to faff about using bed release agents when I can just use ABS, but can see why some people like it....its just not for me.

 

[Giurra]

Wow, that's impressive peps1. Intersecting observation on printer quality, after some thought looks logical, like the most tech things these days: TVs, mobile phones... I have ender 3 too, but your prints look much better. Had the same issue with petg, the original build plate dilaminated after removing one of the prints and left a hole making it almost useless. Had to organize prints around it After that got original creality glass bed plate and had no issues since. Thank you for posting the stl files on thingiverse. Looking forward to your new mods panels.

 

[peps1]

Wow, that's impressive peps1. Intersecting observation on printer quality, after some thought looks logical, like the most tech things these days: TVs, mobile phones... I have ender 3 too, but your prints look much better. Had the same issue with petg, the original build plate dilaminated after removing one of the prints and left a hole making it almost useless. Had to organize prints around it After that got original creality glass bed plate and had no issues since. Thank you for posting the stl files on thingiverse. Looking forward to your new mods panels.

ABS has the huge advantage of not needing cooling like PLA, so ABS prints often look better than PLA, just due to the fact most stock printers are not that good at cooling hence all the aftermarket and printable fan ducts.

The Ender 3 is capable of some really good pints. If you ever need some help tuning it feel free to give me a shout. I put a lot of my print quality down to using Klipper firmware that runs on a Raspberry Pi and just uses to stock mainboard as a slave, literally just utilises the stepper drivers and MOSFETs for controlling the temps, all the calculations for movement are processed on the PI rather than the mainboards MCU.

 

[Giurra]

This is really interesting, about using external raspberry for driving the printer. I wanted to try octoprint for mobiles, as it includes wifi and camera options. Will see about raspberry pi. Thank you very much @peps1
Not printing very much lately, mostly some simple things for our home and some toys for our kids. I don't have any particular issues with my ender 3, except consistency and dimension accuracy. If you have some advice on that would be really grateful. Quality and speed are pretty good.

 

[peps1]

This is really interesting, about using external raspberry for driving the printer. I wanted to try octoprint for mobiles, as it includes wifi and camera options. Will see about raspberry pi. Thank you very much @peps1
Not printing very much lately, mostly some simple things for our home and some toys for our kids. I don't have any particular issues with my ender 3, except consistency and dimension accuracy. If you have some advice on that would be really grateful. Quality and speed are pretty good.

I would just say calibration, calibration, calibration. Dimension accuracy 9 times out of 10 will be the flow rate being off, so you're getting more or less plastic then intended, I would run through the calibrations here https://teachingtechyt.github.io/calibration.html

E steps and Flow are the most important, but tuning the speeds and Linear Advance tuning will also play a part.

 

[Giurra]

Thank you very much @peps1 will check and do as instructed