It seems the day got away from me, as it appears the weekend might well also, so a totally unrelated, 3D printer story.
Precious granddaughter (also known as PGD) officially turned into a teenager last month as the clock ticked over to 13. One of the things we picked off her Christmas list this most recent Christmas was a Taylor Swift CD. I have no idea how common that is for 13 year olds, but it was easy to do and she was happy to get it.
Around the middle of January, I broke a plastic measuring teaspoon and thought "why not just print one?" so I found myself looking for models on a few sites. That's when I stumbled across this, on the public print library at Prusa:
I asked Dear Daughter-in-Law if she thought PGD would like this, got an enthusiastic yes, downloaded the two files and since this was pretty much two full months before her birthday, promptly put it aside.
When the calendar started getting into March, I setup the printer and did the large piece on the left and then went on to the more intricate piece on the right. As the printer started getting closer to the end of the print, I could tell it was messed up in a way I'd never seen. It looked like this:
print.jpg)
Compare it to the view on the right in previous picture. I have no idea why it turned some solid curves into dashed lines, but it clearly did. The problem turns out to have been the Slicer software I was using, which is from Prusa, like the cookie cutter itself.
I pretty quickly switched to another slicer software package I have and that one was much closer to the original. I've since downloaded updated versions of both Slicers.
The two pieces were Priority Mailed to PGD and the first batch of cookies were had a couple of weeks ago. To borrow/butcher a line, "a splendid time was guaranteed to all" and received by them.
Bravo!
ReplyDeleteCookie cutters is hard.
ReplyDelete(I am dismayed there is no after photo. Cruel, SiG, just cruel.)
I was pretty sure I had a picture, but just wanted to keep PGD's face offline. But looking for it this morning, I can't find a picture. Oh, well...
DeleteI've seen a few different ways to produce filament gaps, but that's a new one. I'm curious what slicer you used.
ReplyDeleteI've been using Cura. Briefly looked at Prusa slicer and Creality Print, and didn't like either one. These days, I think Orca is the new hotness. Maybe I'll look at it some day. It's a descendent of Prusa, so I don't have high hopes.
The bad one that was pictured was done by Prusa, and the one I had installed but only used when that bombed was Cura. Rev levels would be handy to know. I've already replaced the Prusa with ver 2.9 and have 2.9.1 to install do I have no idea which one I used. My desktop says my old Cura installation is 4.11.0 and I have 5.9.1 to install.
DeleteI guess I'm so used to SW nagging you to update it that neither one nagged so I didn't update them. I haven't even heard of Orca, though.
Cura updates pretty frequently. I'm at 5.10.0 now. I don't like how it handles printer and material profiles, but otherwise it's been good. Lately, it has a weird behavior - when opening a model, it takes a long time for it to appear on the build plate. Since I don't run a print farm, it doesn't bother me.
ReplyDeleteI've had nothing but good luck from Cura, whatever version. But I make my own solid models with Autodesk and slice from an STL file. I have had serious problems trying to use already-sliced models from the internet, so I always try to get an STL file to work from so that I can set up my own settings.
ReplyDeleteI meant to add: if you make the cookie cutters from PLA, know that they will melt out of shape in a dishwasher. Use ABS, even if it is a pain due to the higher temp.
ReplyDeleteHmm. I've been using PLA+ but I didn't caution the kids about dishwashers. Thanks for that. One can just leave the heat off in the dishwasher, which is probably many times simpler around here than up where they are.
Delete