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I'm a senior tutor in advanced manufacturing at Harlow College, we'll be using these with students and prototyping components before sending them to CNC machines
They're great. I bought a Makerbot Replicator 2 for our work a few years ago and it's been brilliant! I've made all sorts of things (work and personal). The only issue is that the PLA material is biodegradable and realistically starts to deform with age and temperature.
I've even made some borehole triaxial low frequency vibration sensors using it that were used to do seismic event logging around the O2.
The Subaru printed very well. Did you have to do any support structures to help hold things in place while printing?
Last edited by BrownPantsRacing; Feb 7, 2017 at 09:48 AM.
Do any of your machines have heated build plates? Be careful where you put the smaller open frame machines as temperature changes and air movement in the room can effect how the PLA adheres to the plate and itself.
I find I have to carefully wash the build plate before every print and ensure it's warmed up thoroughly in a bath of very warm water and dried. This helps to make sure the 1st layer sticks well. The 1st layer is the most important of all so ensure the plate is 100% level before starting and if necessary design extra spreader pads on the base of the object just to give more material contact to the plate.
They really are great bits of kit. Used mine yesterday to print a 3D tooling jig that was used by our production department. Designed & printed within the hour. Simples!
Last edited by BrownPantsRacing; Feb 8, 2017 at 08:57 AM.
Do any of your machines have heated build plates? Be careful where you put the smaller open frame machines as temperature changes and air movement in the room can effect how the PLA adheres to the plate and itself.
I find I have to carefully wash the build plate before every print and ensure it's warmed up thoroughly in a bath of very warm water and dried. This helps to make sure the 1st layer sticks well. The 1st layer is the most important of all so ensure the plate is 100% level before starting and if necessary design extra spreader pads on the base of the object just to give more material contact to the plate.
They really are great bits of kit. Used mine yesterday to print a 3D tooling jig that was used by our production department. Designed & printed within the hour. Simples!
none of them have heated plates, I found yesterday that around lunchtime they weren't liking the temperature in the room so thanks for that advice. We have our formal training next Friday so hopefully they'll have some more advice. They are fantastic machines.
none of them have heated plates, I found yesterday that around lunchtime they weren't liking the temperature in the room so thanks for that advice. We have our formal training next Friday so hopefully they'll have some more advice. They are fantastic machines.
They certainly are great machines. You got the right ones there IMO. I purchased 2 different makes before settling on the Makerbot unit. We ended up sending the other ones back they were so bad. The Makerbot has been brilliant all things considered.
When you are creating the 3D models in cad make sure you have the cad package/drawing set to the highest possible modelling resolution. For instance in AutoCad this means typing FACETRES and changing the default setting from 0.5 to 10. That way all of the curves will be smooth on the final printed model. You can really see the difference in Makerware when you bring in the stl file.
We've also tried the higher temperature material with the intention of having an increased operating temperature of the final part, but realistically this material only works with a heated build plate machine, so it's not worth the effort or extra expense TBH.
Our build plate is scratched and battle scarred now from use, you are supposed to change them when they get like that, but it still works just fine. You'll get a lot of mileage from the plates and nozzles. Originally we were told to remove the material and clean the nozzle after every print before you turn the machine off as the material can absorb moisture which will effect the printing. I got bored doing that years ago and leave a roll on the machine all the time now with no ill effects at all.
