slodat's 3d printed shop projects

[slodat]

I got a tension/compression tapping cshuck with the Haas I bought last year. It's a Japanese made Tecnara and it works great. I have a few collets and they have been rolling around in a Shaller bin. I realized I needed another size. That lead to some ebay best offer action. Now I need a better way what will be a full set #6 through 1/2. Some time in Fusion..

Some time for the X1C to do its thing..

As I learn to model things, I try to add more detail when it makes sense. The pockets for these collets are a great example. Tray turned out great.

 

[brino]

@slodat, are you painting that raised lettering, or is the white another filament in a dual extruder?
Either way it looks great!
Brian

 

[slodat]

Bambu Labs X1C. It manages up to four filaments at one time. This is a two color print. The white letters are printed in white PLA.

 

[ttabbal]

For less fancy printers, many slicers have an option to pause and run a macro at a certain layer. You can use that to move the print head off to the side and pause. Then swap filament and restart. Make sure to leave the motors engaged, to prevent movement of the print head so it doesn't lose position. It's great for lettering and such like that.

Certainly not as easy as having the printer do it, but gets the job done if you really want it. And this method only works if you have a clean layer boundary for the swap. The fancy printers can often switch mid-layer to change color for angled and horizontal areas.

 

[Scra99tch]

All in all how do you like the X1c so far? I'm holding out a little to see if any fatal bugs pop up that can't be resolved. Most of the features look enticing especially right out of the box. I have not owned a printer and don't have the motivation to troubleshoot one if something were to go wrong.

 

[slodat]

The X1C has been flawless out of the box. No failed prints. I makes really nice parts. It is lightyears more user friendly than the Prusa. I love(d) the Prusa. It sits idle most of the time and the X1C is printing my production parts non-stop. Highly recommend it.

 

[slodat]

Came home to this a week ago. It’s a BIG box:

Packed really well..

A few minutes of minor assembly:

Then run through various calibrations:

Then 90 minutes in support chat. The left Z axis stepper seems to have seized since it left the factory. They say they haven’t seen this failure. Because of this they need a few days to decide what they want to do. Support had me remove all the fasteners to lift the heat bed to verify the stepper does not turn.

After a lot of back and forth in Prusa's support chat the new Z axis motor for the XL arrived yesterday. Turns out the screw is integral to the stepper motor shaft. So.. I wrapped the jaws of a pair of pliers with a microfiber cloth and put some ass on the seized Z axis screw on the XL. Of course it turned. After a couple hours of back and forth with their support chat folks, the XL was up and running. The toolchange setup is REALLY slick. The first print was a small calibration cube:

Coffee cup for scale. I'm not really impressed or happy with the support process. And, initial impressions of the XL are really good! This is where I left it when I went home last night..

This is what I walked in to this morning when I got to the shop.

14" wide, 4" deep, 2" tall. Zero lift in the corners. NONE.

First real print on the XL was as good as I feel a person can hope for.

 

[slodat]

More XL photos:

I like the little screen UI and the PrusaLink. The first layer is really, really good.

And it's doing a great job on these big flat parts.

That is a small tray for my calipers and other stuff on my desk.

Now I have it working on a big, and LONG job. It's printing the hardware box top and bottom.

It's a 25 hour print for both parts with a 0.6mm nozzle and 0.3mm layer height. About twice as long as the X1C to make the same parts. But, it can make them, even slower and contribute to the production effort. I'm excited to see how they turn out. These are in PETG.

I've printed about 8 of the hardware case parts in ABS on the X1C. I'm really happy with how they are turning out. They are as close to flat as anything I've printed on any of my printers. The quality is awesome, and they are stupid strong. The X1C is printing these in about 6 hours. I'm not noticing any fumes to speak of.

The texture from the texture build plate is awesome. I think this is about as good as one can expect from 3D printing. I'm really happy with these parts!

 

[slodat]

More XL photos:

Corners are not lifting thus far. I haven't achieved this on any other combo yet. Excited to see how the corners are when the prints are done.

 

[woodchucker]

I wanted a small CAT40 tooling rack for setting up tools for the Haas and Tree milling machines.

Designed in Fusion 360.
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Over an hour for the first layer, 36 hours to go!


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The next morning..

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First of two..

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End result. Took about 1kg of PETG. About $20 and 3 days of printing. It's incredibly strong and will do the job.

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3 days of printing? No thanks, that's too long. I could make something a little less refined, but quite usable in a few hours.