{"id":526,"date":"2019-03-12T23:59:26","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T23:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/?p=526"},"modified":"2019-03-15T19:25:15","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T19:25:15","slug":"a-3d-printer-diary-printing-a-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/a-3d-printer-diary-printing-a-box","title":{"rendered":"A 3D printer diary &#8211; printing a box"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>3D printing takes AGES! Even something as simple as the small container shown below takes four hours!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/IMG_0784-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-524\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/IMG_0784-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/IMG_0784-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/IMG_0784-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>The 3D-printed version is on the left. <br>The original (injection-moulded) is on the right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A lot of lessons were learned from this print job. The short version is as follows: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Don&#8217;t start a print job at 8pm. You&#8217;ll get a late night.<\/li><li>Supports are a great idea.<\/li><li>The raft underneath was a waste of time on this model.<\/li><li>The box is flimsy. See below for why.<\/li><li>My Cura settings were wrong.<\/li><li>The nozzle was still slightly blocked (as I found out a few days later).<br><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>3D printing involves layering tiny amounts of hot plastic, in layers of 0.1mm (or more, or less, depending on the printer). The software takes a 3D file (like a .STL file or a .OBJ file) and &#8220;Slices&#8221; it into hundreds of layers. This takes time. The white box above took nearly four hours to print, and I got to bed at midnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The observant will notice that the top of the box is a different colour. With 12 minutes to go, the white filament ran out. I cheekily pushed the end of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/a-3d-printer-diary-dads-visit\">yellow length of filament<\/a> into the top of the filament feeder, whilst it was still running, guesstimating the correct time to do so. I&#8217;m sure one is supposed to pause the model whilst doing this, but it worked for me this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/IMG_0783-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-534\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/IMG_0783-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/IMG_0783-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/IMG_0783-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The resultant box has weak sides, and feels flimsy. It feels like it&#8217;s made of thin paper, and the quality of the sides is terrible. There are two possible issues: one is that my settings in the Cuda software are incorrect. I&#8217;m using Cuda to add supports and the raft &#8211; because the official Digilab software <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/a-3d-printer-diary-supports\">won&#8217;t export in the correct format<\/a>. the other issue (as I found out) was that the nozzle was still blocked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <em>underneath<\/em> of the box is much better than last time. Apart from a few stringy bits, it&#8217;s relatively clean. The supports were very thin, as they are meant to be, and broke off easily.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/IMG_0804-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-547\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/IMG_0804-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/IMG_0804-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/IMG_0804-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m not convinced that a raft was really necessary. It took 31 minutes to print the raft, even before starting to print the supports and the model. I felt that the raft was a waste of time in this case. There are good examples where a raft is important, particularly for models which don&#8217;t have a flat base. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next, we will try giving the nozzle a really good clean, and try again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>3D printing takes AGES! Even something as simple as the small container shown below takes four hours! A lot of lessons were learned from this print job. The short version is as follows: Don&#8217;t start a print job at 8pm. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/a-3d-printer-diary-printing-a-box\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[25,49],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":551,"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions\/551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wis.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}