Not entirely planned, but...

[Lisa]

I've been spending most of the year trying to save for a new air conditioner after the last one blew up (really, there was flashes and smoke and everything) at the end of last summer. But then my lovely sister jumped in and bought us an air conditioner. As such, even after a few necessities that I'd been putting off all year, I have a little spare money; so I decided to get something new to experiment with, and this got delivered today:





It's an Anet A2, which while not the latest and greatest is by all accounts quite good, and it's few shortcomings can be overcome by using it to print it's own upgrades. It's also rather cheap at $130!
So I'll be able to put this together and experiment with it a bit when it's too hot in the workshop over the summer.

[ilvaporista]

Have fun, it is amazing the files that you find on the web to print. We now have a family set of Star Wars storm trooper egg cups. Not needed in the slightest but good fun.

However I have yet to print anything remotely useful for the workshop on my JG Aurora A5.... It's on my things to do over the Christmas holiday list.

[Lisa]

One thing that intrigues me is something I saw someone else do: printing lathe change gears. No good for continual use, but for one or two odd threads that you don't have the gears for, they apparently work just fine.

Otherwise there's all kinds of bits and bobs I can think of, and I'll probably just play with it to start with.

[Lisa]

Well this is starting to look like a 3D printer:


Dad even helped, mostly he was just sorting things and looking at the bits, but the closest guide wheel to the camera was assembled by him; really seemed to be enjoying himself.

[JonL]

I'm interested to see how this comes together.

[Lisa]

I finished putting the printer together last night, and after a bit of frustration trying to get Cura to work I eventually discovered I'm not the only one having problems with that program (unusable was mentioned by some) and got a test print running using Pronterface.
There was a guide wheel missing from my kit, but rather than chasing one down through distributors etc. I just bought a pack of 10 off ebay for a few dollars; so I now have a heap of spares. Other than that though, it all went together well, a few fiddly bits, but all of the parts fitted as they should.



So having discovered that Cura pretty much doesn't work at all over USB at present, I switched to Pronterface and things worked much smoother. Ultimately the print failed, but I learnt a lot in the process, and I'm sure subsequent prints will go much better. The test print I used was a small box not much bigger than a business card; it's one of the files that came with the printer. I only got as far as printing the bottom of it, before the whole thing came unstuck from the print bed; which was unsurprising given how poor the print quality was at the beginning.

Here's the bottom of the bit I got done, showing how things started out. It's Bad. Individual lines of PLA that aren't stuck together, and weren't sticking to the bed either.


Fortunately, Pronterface let me adjust setting while the print was running, which is perfect for experimenting. So after a bit of messing about, I increased the extrusion speed, slowed down the movement of the print head, and increased the bed temperature a little. The results were much better:


You can see here the point at which it came unstuck from the bed, and the job moved, at which point I canceled the print. However the quality of the print is significantly improved over the first photo', with good solid extrusions, and everything connected together as a single piece as it should be. So this is looking good for future experiments.

[coniston]

Glad you're up and running with it, I have to say that I successfully used Cura for more than a year before I got Simplify3D which is one of the best slicing softwares to use. Having said that I never printed across a USB interface, only transferred using SD card. this has the advantage that nothing youdo with the computer will affect the print, I would suggest trying it as an alternative. Also have a look on Ultimaker website, the latest Cura is very comprehensive now and far better than the one usually packaged with the machines.


What settings are you using? for PLA I usually use 190C extruder, 55 to 60C bed temperature and 40 to 60 mm/s print speed, 0.2mm layer height. most slicing software allows increase extrusion or reduced layer height for first layer which can be a benefit for adhesion. Also reduced print speed (50% to 70%) helps. and of course bed levelling is also critical to adhesion.

Hope this helps and keep going it really is a rewarding hobby and so easy to make lots of useful gadgets or repair bits.

Chris D