I was looking at that stupid hole without a plug on top of the front spring perch again today. Receptacle for dirt and moisture. Formula for rust city. Been there and fixed them. Very cool plug. Now I need a Bambu. I can’t avoid all the discussion about them. My 21yr old son is working on his engineering degree and taking some solid works courses on the side. He wants to go in halfsies with me on a printer. I told him we should go for the ~$2k version and he was like, “No, like $400-500.”
Or a friend with a Bambu. I have a mis-matched pair of plugs left over. One is the prototype and the other is the final design. There are only two differences between them, and they don’t affect function. The differences are: 1) the prototype has a solid center, and 2) the screwdriver notches are deeper on the prototype. Once installed, you can’t tell the difference. If you want them, PM me your address, and I’ll send them over.
An excellent career choice, if I don’t mind sayin’!
Overnight, I did a test print with ASA using Support for ABS filament at the interfaces (3 layers). The Support for ABS filament has been in my AMS for about a month (pretty much since I bought it), and I dried it when I put it in there. However, I believe that it had absorbed some water because the ASA printed beautifully, but the Support for ABS was stringy and crumbly (note all the "crumbs" on the build plate):
View attachment 662450
The print still worked out. Support was very easy to remove, but with the crumbly support material, the surfaces touching the support were rough. However, it was a successful test. And I learned something that surprised me. This printer was drawing a lot of current when printing the ABS because the bed and chamber were heated. My wife is a glass artist and fired up her propane/oxygen torch, which gets its oxygen from two oxygen concentrators running in parallel that each draw over 10A (they're on separate circuit breakers). One of the concentrators was on the same circuit as the printer, and not long into her work, that breaker popped - about 80% through my print. It was actually far enough along that I would have been able to check fit as-is. However, when I reset the breaker, the printer remembered where it was in the print and let me resume without a hiccup. Cool! I thought the print was done at that point. Bravo, Bambu!
I dried the support material after the last layer using it was printed - while the printer completed the test print using only ASA filament. I'm hopeful the drying will solve the crumbly/stringy issues. As for the part, I tweaked the opening length and width for the remote pocket because it fit tighter in the ASA part, and I adjusted the mounting hole locations for better fitment. The final part (fingers crossed) is printing now. It's a very long print, even using variable layer thickness. It'll be done Friday after lunch.
And here are all the test prints done to get this thing designed:
View attachment 662457
What are not shown are the countless paper templates I printed out to ensure my design matched the odd surfaces correctly. I must have close to 100 hours of design into this silly part! It was well worth the effort - the part fits darn near perfectly, my "design itch" was satisfied, and I've learned a lot more tools in Fusion during this process.
I'm still working on the dust seals for the cutting brake slots. I've spent two days modeling the front of the console to make form-fitting dust seals. Here's what I have so far (the one on the right doesn't have a slit in it, yet):
View attachment 662458
Designing those was very challenging. First, I had to model the console because the parts need to fit on it. And in the process, I had to learn a LOT of new Fusion tools to make these due to the compound curves on the front of the console. Lots of card stock templates were printed to make sure I had the compound curves modeled correctly. Early on in the process, I did a few test prints, and think I ran into a moisture issue with the TPU, too, because the last print was a disaster. Filament loops hanging everywhere! Before I try a print of the full seals, I'll need to do a few tests to get the dimensions dialed-in. If they don't fit perfectly, I fear they'll fall off when moving the cutting brake levers. Once I get the basic dimensions down, I can try a full print.
Although it may seem like it, I promise this hasn't turned into a 3D printing build! I have plenty of other tasks to go for this build - once the 3D printing binge ends. Stay tuned...
Overnight, I did a test print with ASA using Support for ABS filament at the interfaces (3 layers). The Support for ABS filament has been in my AMS for about a month (pretty much since I bought it), and I dried it when I put it in there. However, I believe that it had absorbed some water because the ASA printed beautifully, but the Support for ABS was stringy and crumbly (note all the "crumbs" on the build plate):
View attachment 662450
The print still worked out. Support was very easy to remove, but with the crumbly support material, the surfaces touching the support were rough. However, it was a successful test. And I learned something that surprised me. This printer was drawing a lot of current when printing the ABS because the bed and chamber were heated. My wife is a glass artist and fired up her propane/oxygen torch, which gets its oxygen from two oxygen concentrators running in parallel that each draw over 10A (they're on separate circuit breakers). One of the concentrators was on the same circuit as the printer, and not long into her work, that breaker popped - about 80% through my print. It was actually far enough along that I would have been able to check fit as-is. However, when I reset the breaker, the printer remembered where it was in the print and let me resume without a hiccup. Cool! I thought the print was done at that point. Bravo, Bambu!
I dried the support material after the last layer using it was printed - while the printer completed the test print using only ASA filament. I'm hopeful the drying will solve the crumbly/stringy issues. As for the part, I tweaked the opening length and width for the remote pocket because it fit tighter in the ASA part, and I adjusted the mounting hole locations for better fitment. The final part (fingers crossed) is printing now. It's a very long print, even using variable layer thickness. It'll be done Friday after lunch.
And here are all the test prints done to get this thing designed:
View attachment 662457
What are not shown are the countless paper templates I printed out to ensure my design matched the odd surfaces correctly. I must have close to 100 hours of design into this silly part! It was well worth the effort - the part fits darn near perfectly, my "design itch" was satisfied, and I've learned a lot more tools in Fusion during this process.
I'm still working on the dust seals for the cutting brake slots. I've spent two days modeling the front of the console to make form-fitting dust seals. Here's what I have so far (the one on the right doesn't have a slit in it, yet):
View attachment 662458
Designing those was very challenging. First, I had to model the console because the parts need to fit on it. And in the process, I had to learn a LOT of new Fusion tools to make these due to the compound curves on the front of the console. Lots of card stock templates were printed to make sure I had the compound curves modeled correctly. Early on in the process, I did a few test prints, and think I ran into a moisture issue with the TPU, too, because the last print was a disaster. Filament loops hanging everywhere! Before I try a print of the full seals, I'll need to do a few tests to get the dimensions dialed-in. If they don't fit perfectly, I fear they'll fall off when moving the cutting brake levers. Once I get the basic dimensions down, I can try a full print.
Although it may seem like it, I promise this hasn't turned into a 3D printing build! I have plenty of other tasks to go for this build - once the 3D printing binge ends. Stay tuned...
Thanks, Mike! My bed temp is set to 65°C, which is the maximum. The print is still hanging in there. The top surface of the supports, with each layer printed, seems to be fairly planar (unlike the sides which have warped even more since that last photo), so maybe this print will survive?
Well, I aborted this latest print, too. Look at this ugly mess:
View attachment 662698
I guess the surface wasn't as flat as it looked because just before it started laying down the second deck (and about the time the layer height dropped from .24mm to .08mm), the machine stopped neatly laying the bead on top the last layer accurately. I'm going to make a few setting changes and try again. What's that old adage about trying again?
Yes, for this last print I increased the threshold from 15° to 60°. However, I did that as a "hail Mary." I didn't think it would work because I'm seeing the support itself fail due to warping - before the part above it starts getting printed, so I don't think that will help. It certainly didn't on the last print.
As I said above, this is what I've been concentrating on, but I'm not happy with the options. I don't mind burning through filament if I can get this to print. I just don't like burning through filament only to see the print fail after 24 hours.
