3D Printing General Discussion (merged)

[Illithar]

10 hours ago, Olaf the Stout said:

A lot of resin printers have a clean tank function to remove any bits of hardened resin stuck to the FEP. You do it with resin in the tank.

Correct. However, the point of running without the tank in the printer is to fully light up a clear screen. It doesn't display a logo or other image, just clear blank screen. The normal LCD test can sometimes obscure otherwise dead pixel. It's basically two different way to test the screen (as well as an option for cleaning the FEP). 

[Glitterwolf]

10 hours ago, KruleBear said:

So if the angle is point down (as opposed to edge down), it really looks like when I tarted getting week spots in my LCD. Do the holes in the bottom edge goal the way through?

 

Maybe put the same base in several spots on your build plate and see if you see a pattern to the failure. Best of luck. 

With the base the holes went all the way through  

So it might mean I will need te replace the LCD? I do have two spares, I'm a bit scared of it though, not very technical....

9 hours ago, Illithar said:

Correct. However, the point of running without the tank in the printer is to fully light up a clear screen. It doesn't display a logo or other image, just clear blank screen. The normal LCD test can sometimes obscure otherwise dead pixel. It's basically two different way to test the screen (as well as an option for cleaning the FEP). 

But you remove the vat and resin then run a print? The build plate willnot crash into the LCD or do I have to press some special button? Elegoo Mars.

Edited May 22 by Glitterwolf

[haldir]

I do believe that is why we "home" thr build plates when we level. Where ever you zeroed at is where your plate will stop at. It's similar to Z stop on a fdm printer.

[Illithar]

1 hour ago, Glitterwolf said:

But you remove the vat and resin then run a print? The build plate willnot crash into the LCD or do I have to press some special button? Elegoo Mars.

The Tank Clean function does not move the build plate. The intended use is to fully explose the full print area for an extended period. This creates a layer of cured resin that traps any print failures or bits of resin. You then peel it off of the FEP. I have seen some people pit a small bit of support in the vat when doing this to create a sort 'handle' to make it easier.

 

Without the vat in place and the hood off you will just have a fully open and lit up screen. I did this on my old Mars Pro without issue.

[Glitterwolf]

1 hour ago, Illithar said:

The Tank Clean function does not move the build plate. The intended use is to fully explose the full print area for an extended period. This creates a layer of cured resin that traps any print failures or bits of resin. You then peel it off of the FEP. I have seen some people pit a small bit of support in the vat when doing this to create a sort 'handle' to make it easier.

 

Without the vat in place and the hood off you will just have a fully open and lit up screen. I did this on my old Mars Pro without issue.

Ah thx, and then you can see it if a part doesn't light up? So if that's the case I will have to replace the lcd..

[KruleBear]

10 hours ago, Glitterwolf said:

With the base the holes went all the way through  

So it might mean I will need te replace the LCD? I do have two spares, I'm a bit scared of it though, not very technical....

But you remove the vat and resin then run a print? The build plate willnot crash into the LCD or do I have to press some special button? Elegoo Mars.

There are a few real good youtube videos you will want to review. Mine was a challenge as I had had a vat leak in the past. Leak caused resin to leak under the lcd screen and above the acrylic support. In attempting to separate them by heat, I warped the acrylic plate. It took a few months for me to address broccoli the acrylic had an unavailable thickness in my area. Once I installed the new plate and screen I taped the heck out of the edge to prevent a future leak causing havoc. 

[Illithar]

8 hours ago, Glitterwolf said:

Ah thx, and then you can see it if a part doesn't light up? So if that's the case I will have to replace the lcd..

Yeah, the entire screen should be a big violet square. Any spots means it's going bad.

[Glitterwolf]

1 hour ago, KruleBear said:

There are a few real good youtube videos you will want to review. Mine was a challenge as I had had a vat leak in the past. Leak caused resin to leak under the lcd screen and above the acrylic support. In attempting to separate them by heat, I warped the acrylic plate. It took a few months for me to address broccoli the acrylic had an unavailable thickness in my area. Once I installed the new plate and screen I taped the heck out of the edge to prevent a future leak causing havoc. 

I applied Kapton Tapevat my first use, I came prepared for that. I'm not very technical though and a bit scared I might break a connection or something like that when I need to replace stuff. Will watch the vids.

25 minutes ago, Illithar said:

Yeah, the entire screen should be a big violet square. Any spots means it's going bad.

Thanks I still hope cleaning will do the truck. But if necessary to replace the screen I will have to give it a try. I will test it this way when I get back wednesday. Thanks for the advice!

[haldir]

Crazy, at this time last week, my printer (Phrozen mini 4k) was a machine, printing out things I've never printed before. Items were coming out like they were suppose to be. I was even printing multiple parts on the plate, something I've never have been able to do correctly. Now, starting yesterday, it's went slowly downhill. It started with a print that was pre-supported & a leg didn't print, into the trash it went, then I have a multiple plate print that most of the pieces weren't solid & were missing. This morning, I looked at a print (a halfling) & again a piece was missing. I just did a quick simple corpse print with a flat back & I had absolutely nothing on the plate. It was like I just took the plate, dipped into the vat & pulled it out. I changed my nFep yesterday as I needed too, but I was hoping that would have helped solved the problem, I did a retinue clean up of the machine as well. I checked the lcd & I'm getting a full purple light with the Phrozen logo with no failures when I do the lcd test & I know I'm not close to the life of the LCD screen either, so I have no idea what is going on. Any ideas?

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I could swear that I saw a Patreon for this month that has a steam tank, but now I cannot find it.

 

Does anyone know which Patreon that might be?

 

Found it - Titan Forge.

 

 

The Auld Grump

Edited May 23 by TheAuldGrump

[WhiteWulfe]

Ooof, Archvillain Games had something so, so, soooo close that I'd want for June...  Aaaaaand then sadly it seems it's only available in an undead form, with a decent amount of skulls.  Email had me excited, but then seeing the main big figure on screen just...  Oh well, wallet's seeing enough hits this next month!

[haldir]

On 5/22/2022 at 2:10 PM, haldir said:

Crazy, at this time last week, my printer (Phrozen mini 4k) was a machine, printing out things I've never printed before. Items were coming out like they were suppose to be. I was even printing multiple parts on the plate, something I've never have been able to do correctly. Now, starting yesterday, it's went slowly downhill. It started with a print that was pre-supported & a leg didn't print, into the trash it went, then I have a multiple plate print that most of the pieces weren't solid & were missing. This morning, I looked at a print (a halfling) & again a piece was missing. I just did a quick simple corpse print with a flat back & I had absolutely nothing on the plate. It was like I just took the plate, dipped into the vat & pulled it out. I changed my nFep yesterday as I needed too, but I was hoping that would have helped solved the problem, I did a retinue clean up of the machine as well. I checked the lcd & I'm getting a full purple light with the Phrozen logo with no failures when I do the lcd test & I know I'm not close to the life of the LCD screen either, so I have no idea what is going on. Any ideas?

 

 

Ok, I went ahead & tried some things to see if I can get to the bottom of this:

 

Filtered my new batch of resin (Phrozen 4k grey) again. Cleaned off the failed print & carefully wiped the nfep. Since I just changed it Saturday, I didn't want to do any harm to it. I also decided to re-read hte Epax instructions to see if I spaced off a coating on the sheet (there isn't any).

 

I decided to once again see if the LCD was damage, as $124 bucks for a new LCD is something I really, really don't want to buy right now. It looked ok, there was no distortion or bad pixels in the screen. The Phrozen logo is a tad bit annoying, I'd rather have a blank screen. I also re-cleaned the glass plate, as I noticed there was a bit of resin specks on it. How those got there, I have no idea as I've never had a leaky nfep/fep sheet.

 

I also re-leveled twice, as I wasn't convinced on the first time I did this time. I recall last time I re-leveled I was having problems & doing that solved them. Hoping this is the case again.

 

Shook the hell & back again on the resin bottle before pouring & re-placed the vat. I did notice the vat screw posts are lose. Should they be? I'm thinking maybe the screwed under are getting loose? I've never noticed before, I guess.

 

I also took my thumb drive & deleted my files & re-downloaded them again, just in case.

 

Hopefully these steps will make it so I'm back to printing again. If not, I'll prob have to send my files out to a outside printer to get printed up (same one as I've been doing for the fdm prints.). Hoping that's not the case, as I like seeing my prints come out. If anything, I guess I can always purchase a new LCD, but that'll be my last resort, as I don't think it's near it's lifespan & I don't want to replace it, if I don't need too.

[haldir]

2 hours ago, haldir said:

 

Ok, I went ahead & tried some things to see if I can get to the bottom of this:

 

Filtered my new batch of resin (Phrozen 4k grey) again. Cleaned off the failed print & carefully wiped the nfep. Since I just changed it Saturday, I didn't want to do any harm to it. I also decided to re-read hte Epax instructions to see if I spaced off a coating on the sheet (there isn't any).

 

I decided to once again see if the LCD was damage, as $124 bucks for a new LCD is something I really, really don't want to buy right now. It looked ok, there was no distortion or bad pixels in the screen. The Phrozen logo is a tad bit annoying, I'd rather have a blank screen. I also re-cleaned the glass plate, as I noticed there was a bit of resin specks on it. How those got there, I have no idea as I've never had a leaky nfep/fep sheet.

 

I also re-leveled twice, as I wasn't convinced on the first time I did this time. I recall last time I re-leveled I was having problems & doing that solved them. Hoping this is the case again.

 

Shook the hell & back again on the resin bottle before pouring & re-placed the vat. I did notice the vat screw posts are lose. Should they be? I'm thinking maybe the screwed under are getting loose? I've never noticed before, I guess.

 

I also took my thumb drive & deleted my files & re-downloaded them again, just in case.

 

Hopefully these steps will make it so I'm back to printing again. If not, I'll prob have to send my files out to a outside printer to get printed up (same one as I've been doing for the fdm prints.). Hoping that's not the case, as I like seeing my prints come out. If anything, I guess I can always purchase a new LCD, but that'll be my last resort, as I don't think it's near it's lifespan & I don't want to replace it, if I don't need too.

I didn't think I'd still be up when the print finished but it was a success, pre-supported human clergy (traditional). So a simple sculpt but one I need & such.

 

I'm printing a 2nd one now. I'll check it before leaving for work tonight. Hopefully, the re-leveling was the solution to my problem.

[Cygnwulf]

Just going to say, those are either bits of resin or dirt stuck under the FEP, or dead pixels.  I had prints coming out like that and it took me a while to figure out a way to be able to see t hem in the screen without blinding myself, turned out there was a nice spray of dead pixels that, because of how my eyes wanted to blur the light coming through the cover, I couldn't really make out, but they were there.

Make yourself a print that is nothing but a huge rectangle that takes up the whole build area, use that as a screen test. you may have to crank your bottom layer time up very high. (run this without the vat in).

If you can't tell for sure, make a new print file with the same model.  Set your bottom layers to the same as a normal layer and run the print without the build plate in, let it print one layer and then cancel it and drain the vat. You'll have a layer stuck to the FEP, don't peel it off, just wipe off/rinse off the resin from it and see if it has holes in it in those same places.

 

[haldir]

3 minutes ago, Cygnwulf said:

Just going to say, those are either bits of resin or dirt stuck under the FEP, or dead pixels.  I had prints coming out like that and it took me a while to figure out a way to be able to see t hem in the screen without blinding myself, turned out there was a nice spray of dead pixels that, because of how my eyes wanted to blur the light coming through the cover, I couldn't really make out, but they were there.

Make yourself a print that is nothing but a huge rectangle that takes up the whole build area, use that as a screen test. you may have to crank your bottom layer time up very high. (run this without the vat in).

If you can't tell for sure, make a new print file with the same model.  Set your bottom layers to the same as a normal layer and run the print without the build plate in, let it print one layer and then cancel it and drain the vat. You'll have a layer stuck to the FEP, don't peel it off, just wipe off/rinse off the resin from it and see if it has holes in it in those same places.

 

 

It's specks, as I was able to pick them off while wiping the glass down with 91% Alc, yesterday (& Saturday). They are a tad bit hard to come off with the limited light source (I mean yes I could crank the exposure time up....). I was able to get most of them off, so I think that part of the problem has been taken care of (for now).

 

2nd print of the same mini came out just like the first one. Reminds me I need to take her off of there & start a similar sculpt (again, trad. clergymen, I need 8 of them. I got some off MMF, there was 4, so 2 each - done).