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Put that 3D printer in your airplane shop to good use for medical personnel

we were printing 500 per day for several days. I have 100 remaining if anyone wants them. send me a message.
 
It's some kind of carbon glass, with a slight dimple to it for adhesion. I'm running the extruder at 200 to 210 with a volcano nozzle and pla. I normally (for the whole 24 hours I've had it) don't use anything for adhesion, on larger stuff it adheres so well it's hard to remove the part sometimes. I'll adjust the multiplier, thanks for the tip

Below is an example of a max-adhesion first layer (left) and a poor-adhesion one (right). All I did was change the z-offset from the bed to the nozzle. A word of caution - if you go too close to the bed you can force molten plastic up into the cooler parts of your hotend and create a jam; see the lower right corner of the left hand print outline.

 
I print on a PEI sheet stuck down to the aluminum bed. I have found that it warps enough to really raise havoc with printing, so I loaded the newer Marlin firmware to do auto bed leveling. Works like a champ. I had a heck of a time after switching to PETG filament. I love the strength and all, but I did have to slow the printer waaaaay down. I can print PLA at 60 mm/sec, but the PETG demands about 42mm/sec (70% speed). I tried 75% and got a ruined batch. I get globs of material that the nozzle or the bed leveling sensor hit, and mayhem ensues.

I was finishing a batch of 8 bands in about 1:12 printing PLA; now it's taking about 2 hours. I'd switch back to PLA, but Amazon is mostly out of it. I may try ABS just to see how they turn out. At least I'm back in production now!
 
I print on a PEI sheet stuck down to the aluminum bed. I have found that it warps enough to really raise havoc with printing, so I loaded the newer Marlin firmware to do auto bed leveling. Works like a champ. I had a heck of a time after switching to PETG filament. I love the strength and all, but I did have to slow the printer waaaaay down. I can print PLA at 60 mm/sec, but the PETG demands about 42mm/sec (70% speed). I tried 75% and got a ruined batch. I get globs of material that the nozzle or the bed leveling sensor hit, and mayhem ensues.

I was finishing a batch of 8 bands in about 1:12 printing PLA; now it's taking about 2 hours. I'd switch back to PLA, but Amazon is mostly out of it. I may try ABS just to see how they turn out. At least I'm back in production now!

I have some BuildTak PEI sheets coming for my flexplate system, so hopefully I can finally use my PETG. I've had some success before, but PLA is way easier imo. I've been able to find PLA on Amazon, just ordered two rolls the other day, showing up this Friday. Hatchbox has been out, but found some eSun, Overture, and Duramic. Those last two come with their own build sheets, so that's pretty cool.

What Marlin version are you using? I had a terrible time with the mesh bed-leveling feature. Had to go back and tweak every point and it's still not perfect. v1.9 I think? I hate major firmware updates and having to start from scratch with all my tweaks.
 
I have some BuildTak PEI sheets coming for my flexplate system, so hopefully I can finally use my PETG. I've had some success before, but PLA is way easier imo. I've been able to find PLA on Amazon, just ordered two rolls the other day, showing up this Friday. Hatchbox has been out, but found some eSun, Overture, and Duramic. Those last two come with their own build sheets, so that's pretty cool.

What Marlin version are you using? I had a terrible time with the mesh bed-leveling feature. Had to go back and tweak every point and it's still not perfect. v1.9 I think? I hate major firmware updates and having to start from scratch with all my tweaks.

I can't speak highly enough of PEI for ABS, PLA, and PETG. My first printer came with something that looked like Buildtak and it was useless for all but PLA. Now I'm running 1 heavily modified d-bot and 4 Vorons all on PEI. If you're going with a new firmware, you should check out Klipper. You can run it alongside Octopi on a Raspberry Pi. The config file is on the Pi, making it much easier to do config changes without re-building Marlin each time.
 
What Marlin version are you using? I had a terrible time with the mesh bed-leveling feature. Had to go back and tweak every point and it's still not perfect. v1.9 I think? I hate major firmware updates and having to start from scratch with all my tweaks.
Marlin 1.1.9 here. I have an Anycubic i3 Mega... it's got an inductive sensor. Once I got the Z offset figured out it works great. Here's what I did:

1.) Preheat the bed and level it the old fashioned way, at each corner, a couple of times until it's as close to perfect as you can get it.
2.) Raise the carriage a few mm until the sensor is not active.
3.) Step the carriage down using the smallest steps you can until the sensor triggers. Read the Z position ; there's your Z offset.

I had to play around with that for a couple of hours. Set the offset, print a single layer, peel it up and measure it with a caliper until I got it to exactly 0.3mm. After that it was on to PID auto-tuning and then smooth sailing, right into the rocks (meaning, the big globs of rock hard PETG all over the place).

For additional fun, I changed not only the firmware but went from the supplied hotend to an E3D V6, which is quite a bit shorter and required changing pretty much everything. But, at least it's not jamming, and the temperature stays very very close to where I set it.

But it's fun, right?
 
Marlin 1.1.9 here. I have an Anycubic i3 Mega... it's got an inductive sensor. Once I got the Z offset figured out it works great. Here's what I did:

1.) Preheat the bed and level it the old fashioned way, at each corner, a couple of times until it's as close to perfect as you can get it.
2.) Raise the carriage a few mm until the sensor is not active.
3.) Step the carriage down using the smallest steps you can until the sensor triggers. Read the Z position ; there's your Z offset.

I had to play around with that for a couple of hours. Set the offset, print a single layer, peel it up and measure it with a caliper until I got it to exactly 0.3mm. After that it was on to PID auto-tuning and then smooth sailing, right into the rocks (meaning, the big globs of rock hard PETG all over the place).

For additional fun, I changed not only the firmware but went from the supplied hotend to an E3D V6, which is quite a bit shorter and required changing pretty much everything. But, at least it's not jamming, and the temperature stays very very close to where I set it.

But it's fun, right?

I don't worry about the accuracy of the first layer thickness, I just adjust the Z offset in my slicer (Simplify3D) until I like what I see for squeeze-out and adhesion. My bed-leveling issues are of a higher-order due to very slight curvatures in the bed and x-axis I assume, hence the mesh bed-leveling. I also have an inductive probe which is very nice.

The E3D V6 has treated me pretty well I think.

Yeah, it's fun, to a point. Lol
 
Sometimes the simplest solutions work just fine.

I'm going to try some in PETG, that'll end spectacularly bad I'm guessing. I did a temp tower in PETG and there's basically no difference in print quality from 220-250

it's really frustrating that some projects print easily and beautifully and some I have to wrestle with for hours to get them done.

If anyone else needs some I'm printing away and can mail them out. I'm slow, it takes me about 4 hours to print 8.
 
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OK, in the not to distant future I envision a time where we have supplied al of the PPE devices that we can make for the medical and other front line heroes out there and they start to run in the other direction like the friends of a gardener that grows squash <GRIN>.

At least that is my dream at this point.

Don't stop making the ear savers because there is another community that can use them. I gave a few to a friend that lives in a retirement community and explained what they are for. She said that several of her neighbors that wear hearing aids have a problem wearing the masks and being able to carry ion a conversation or hearing important communications because the elastic bands deform the ear canal to the point that the hearing aids are useless.

That said, once you have saturated the first responders and grocery clerks, get in touch with your local senior center and see if they can use a few.

Stay upwind and maintain separation,
- larosta
 
Huge Kudo's & Thank You to Bobby Lucas

Huge Thank you to Bobby Lucas and all you "smarter than I with many talents" VAF people using your 3D machines to provide mask straps for our nurses.

I PM'd Bobby and he sent to me, (for our 24 year old ICU-RN daughter) 27 various really cool, "Wonder Woman, Superman, Nurse heart/heart beat symbol" mask straps, which I gave to her and she is giving out to other COVID-19 RN and hospital front line health care workers in the hospital. Our daughter is the ventalitor specialist ICU-RN for our COVID-19 patients.

Our prayers and stay safe go out to all our health care professionals.

Our thanks go out to the VAF community using 3D printers and helping in all the ways you do.

Special Thank you Bobby Lucas.

Thank you so much.

Kenny Gene
Wichita KS area aviator
Rv7a AWC 09-07 690 hours sold 11-11
Rv10 AWC 10-10 847 hours
 
Huge Thank you to Bobby Lucas and all you "smarter than I with many talents" VAF people using your 3D machines to provide mask straps for our nurses.

I PM'd Bobby and he sent to me, (for our 24 year old ICU-RN daughter) 27 various really cool, "Wonder Woman, Superman, Nurse heart/heart beat symbol" mask straps, which I gave to her and she is giving out to other COVID-19 RN and hospital front line health care workers in the hospital. Our daughter is the ventalitor specialist ICU-RN for our COVID-19 patients.

Our prayers and stay safe go out to all our health care professionals.

Our thanks go out to the VAF community using 3D printers and helping in all the ways you do.

Special Thank you Bobby Lucas.

Thank you so much.

Kenny Gene
Wichita KS area aviator
Rv7a AWC 09-07 690 hours sold 11-11
Rv10 AWC 10-10 847 hours

You're very welcome Kenny!
 
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