this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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3D Printing

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The legs broke as always but now I just glue the pieces in and it's fine!

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[–] IMALlama 9 points 7 months ago (2 children)

What do you mean the legs broke as always? Can you show a screen shot of the sliced model and/or the STL? As it stands (heh) these look like they would be difficult to print in one piece.

Added +1 for happy kids.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I assume it is more tolerances and strain.

Legos are actually a massive engineering marvel when you look into them.

Op, the kids are probably too old but consider printing duplo or mega blocks scale. Much easier

[–] MissJinx 2 points 7 months ago

I did scale them, they are pretty big lol.

[–] MissJinx 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

It's not a slice problem, I have a cheap chinese printer that never really worked very well. I think the hot end is broken or something. Do you know when you print something too cold and the layers don't stick? That's what always happens. I printed those in 235⁰ and they still came out fragile with the layers breaking so I just glued the legs with some epox and now it's good. Its just a toy so it doesn't need to last long, but it is very frustrating for sure

[–] IMALlama 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Do you have layers of better layer adhesion and layers of worse? Not to ask the dumb question, but what does your hot end temp look like over the course of a print? You could need something as basic as a PID tune or you might have a failing wire.

[–] MissJinx 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yes! sometimes is better and sometimes worst! I tried learning how to change the hot end but I'm still really new and have no idea so I though about buying a more popular one, like ender, and then trying to fix this one

[–] IMALlama 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

If you have weaker and stronger layers in the same print, one possible cause is a fluctuating extruder temp.

There are two possibilities here:

  • Nothing is mechanically wrong with the printer, but the control loop to maintain your extruders temperature is not well tuned. You can fix this by running a PID tune. Just throw a "u" on the end of the line to write the values to memory
  • You could be experiencing an intermittent failure, likely in wiring, for your thermistor or heater

Vertical walls will also typically be wavy in this case because you'll have more extrusion flow at hotter temperatures and less at lower.

[–] MissJinx 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yes I believe the second option is more likely because i have been increasing the temp to get the same results for a while now. It used to print perfect at 190, then I had to up it to 200, 210 and now it will only print something useful at 230 and it has been failing at the begginig, the first layers are now bad and then the rest is good. It wont last much longer.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

For real life!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] MissJinx 1 points 7 months ago

Thanks!! :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

If changing the entire hotend is too complex you could try with just the thermistor, it's a plug and play matter, so that should be quite easy.

[–] MissJinx 2 points 7 months ago

Amazingly, I hadn't thought of that yet! you're right, I will try to do this before changing the whole He. Thanks!!