Unruly's 3D Printing Follies

[ManvsMini]

Don't think of it as a failure. I see it becoming part of a diorama, a horribly slain eye tyrant. Print out some eye stalks to lie severed on the ground around it, and get creative with making it work.

[Unruly]

So I've had another set of support failures. I've been making it a habit to have a multitude of files ready to print and switch to printing a different thing when one fails, rather than going and fixing the first thing's issues and immediately reprinting it. This time around it was a giant demon mini.

 

The torso/arms did a similar double failure to what I had with the beholder, but not nearly as badly. And this one wasn't hollowed out so I can't blame it on that. I just must have missed some islands or under-supported. I'm betting on under-supporting, because lately I've been trying to use fewer supports than I was.

 

 

When the torso failed, I switched to the right wing. This printed up nicely, except it actually broke while it was printing. When it finished and I went to take it off the build plate the part that connects to the body had broken off of the main wing. Not a big deal, though. Some super glue, a pin or two, and a tiny sliver of green stuff will fix that up. But it still makes me think I need to go in and add another couple supports there and see if that helps prevent future breaks.

 

 

It also got a couple weird lines in it. Could be that those were mishaps caused by my pausing the print, though. I may have accidentally made it skip a layer or two, I don't know. It just looks like something shifted slightly mid-print. And speaking of shifted...

 

I went on to printing the left wing after that, and it printed fine. Or rather it would have printed fine, had I remembered to tighten the build plate down after I removed the right wing. So I got a "complete" wing but it looks like it was carved out of a striated cliff. No offense to the people with FDM printers, I know they've gotten better than they were a few years ago, but I got a resin printer because I didn't want to see layer lines like that. 

 

 

These supports are supposed to be straight...

[TaleSpinner]

Ah yes, I think we all forget to tighten either the resin vat or build plate at least once.  Sucks that yours was on such a large piece.

For me, checking it is now almost an obsession.

[Gadgetman!]

Only once?

 

Ooops....    

 

I'm tempted to replace the small finger screws that holds the Resin vat in place with something a bit more... substantial...  Long arms that will block the print plate from even getting down into the vat unless they've been tightened.   

 

[TaleSpinner]

23 hours ago, Gadgetman! said:

Only once?

 

Ooops....    

 

I'm tempted to replace the small finger screws that holds the Resin vat in place with something a bit more... substantial...  Long arms that will block the print plate from even getting down into the vat unless they've been tightened.   

 

 

I'm not sure what a crash like that would do to your Z-screw alignment.

 

[Gadgetman!]

33 minutes ago, TaleSpinner said:

 

I'm not sure what a crash like that would do to your Z-screw alignment.

 

 

OK, maybe make them so that it blocks me from adding resin.  Or at least make it very visible that something needs to be done. 

 

 

[Unruly]

So these have to be support failures. They have to be. I've gotten failures like this across 3 different pieces, from two different models. This one isn't as bad as the other two, but it still bugs me because I could have sworn I got everything and had enough supports stuck up his crotch to make sure it would print right.

 

 

The way this is going, I'm going to kill my first bottle of resin and half the prints are going to be failures. I know, I'm new to the game and it's a learning process, but I can still get frustrated.

[Glitterwolf]

1 hour ago, Unruly said:

So these have to be support failures. They have to be. I've gotten failures like this across 3 different pieces, from two different models. This one isn't as bad as the other two, but it still bugs me because I could have sworn I got everything and had enough supports stuck up his crotch to make sure it would print right.

 

 

 

The way this is going, I'm going to kill my first bottle of resin and half the prints are going to be failures. I know, I'm new to the game and it's a learning process, but I can still get frustrated.

 

 

Do make sure you use the right kind of supports for the right area.

 

Trying to help here, maybe you already thought of it all.

 

The lowest parts that are built first on the build plates ( especially with some bigger stuff) should be at least medium supports and if big, Heavy supports.

Smaller parts can be supported by either medium or light supports.

Maybe you did place the supports in the right area but they weren't heavy enough?

 

Another possibility.

Before slicing you check for islands, right?

 

Now look very carefully at those place, if the area starts building just before the support reaches it, it will still fail.

The support needs to be the first thing that is in that area, then the mini.

 

 

 

[Maledrakh]

I have adopted the approach that it is better with too much support than too little. Toeing the line will in my experience lead to failures on some level more often than not. Usually it is the contact points between the supportbraces and the actual mini  that are too thin and fail, so I like to up the diameter of those and also add extra thick supports at the lowest point.

[Glitterwolf]

10 minutes ago, Maledrakh said:

I have adopted the approach that it is better with too much support than too little. Toeing the line will in my experience lead to failures on some level more often than not. Usually it is the contact points between the supportbraces and the actual mini  that are too thin and fail, so I like to up the diameter of those and also add extra thick supports at the lowest point.

 

I agree, I rather clean up a little more than have prints fail due to lack of supports.

 

[Auberon]

13 hours ago, Unruly said:

So these have to be support failures. They have to be. I've gotten failures like this across 3 different pieces, from two different models. This one isn't as bad as the other two, but it still bugs me because I could have sworn I got everything and had enough supports stuck up his crotch to make sure it would print right.

 

Do you want to post a screen shot of your supports for the failed prints? Someone might have some advice to give.

[haldir]

On 1/16/2021 at 3:30 AM, Unruly said:

The way this is going, I'm going to kill my first bottle of resin and half the prints are going to be failures. I know, I'm new to the game and it's a learning process, but I can still get frustrated.

 

First bottle tends to be the tester bottle. Look at this way, you paid for the printer & the bottle was free! Now if your still having problems after you've bought your bottles, then yah it gets frustrating. Have you thought about switching to a different brand or color?

[Unruly]

 

On 1/19/2021 at 9:26 AM, haldir said:

 

First bottle tends to be the tester bottle. Look at this way, you paid for the printer & the bottle was free! Now if your still having problems after you've bought your bottles, then yah it gets frustrating. Have you thought about switching to a different brand or color?

 

My first bottle was paid. Elegoo doesn't give free resin with the printer, sadly.

 

I've thought about different colors and brands, but the Elegoo ABS-like gray seems to be among the best when it comes to price and quality from what I've seen elsewhere. Some of what I've seen is people taking the ABS gray and mixing it with the Elegoo ABS translucent blue 50/50, or mixing it with Siraya Blu, to get better results, but I haven't tried it yet. In fact, I haven't printed anything since my last post. Life got in the way.

 

But once I kill off this first bottle of gray I'm gonna try mixing a 50-50 gray/translucent blue in the bottle.