MakerGear Forum

Posted: **Wed Jan 20, 2016 1:29 am**

Anyone catch this article http://www.3ders.org/articles/20160120- ... ify3d.html - she uses a M2.

Posted: **Wed Jan 20, 2016 1:43 am**

Very nice!

Posted: **Wed Jan 20, 2016 4:03 am**

I went to the tgaw.com site. . . there's a heck of a lot of good information, tips and techniques in her blog. I'm going to have to pop down to Occoquan sometime to pay her a visit. It's not far from where I live.

I just posted to her blog, inviting her to share her thoughts on the forum, but she sounds like an extremely busy person. . .

Posted: **Thu Jan 21, 2016 10:12 pm**

Greetings All,

Thank you for your kind words and Tim thanks for your comment on my blog! I've occasionally been a lurker in these forums and have often found some great information here-- most recently bed leveling which turned out to much less intimidating than I thought. I am indeed pretty busy (I have a day job and two little boys), but I think things should slow down now that the holiday season is behind us. I love, love, love my MakerGear M2. I wouldn't be able to say that enough. As far as events, right now the only two things I have in stone are the Nova Mini Maker Faire in March in Reston, Virginia and then I'll do another Booth for the Occoquan Arts & Craft Show in June.

Tim, I would be happy to meet another MakerGear enthusiast in the area! Though probably not *this* weekend. Stay warm and safe this weekend... and hopefully with power to run your printer. : )

Thanks again for your kind words. I'll try to be less of a lurker and more of a talker in the future!
Vicky

Posted: **Thu Jan 21, 2016 10:26 pm**

Vicky, huge +1 to your efforts there. Let me know if you ever find yourself wanting some V3b hotends ... I have a whole bag of still-good ones.

Posted: **Fri Jan 22, 2016 1:41 am**

TGAW wrote:I would be happy to meet another MakerGear enthusiast in the area! Though probably not *this* weekend. Stay warm and safe this weekend... and hopefully with power to run your printer.

Should be a great weekend to stay home and get some printing done. I'll watch out for the NoVa Maker Faire; haven't been to that one (went to the one in Silver Spring a couple of years ago).

Thanks again for your kind words. I'll try to be less of a lurker and more of a talker in the future!

Well, if you ever feel like you have sufficient time on your hands, I would love to see a tutorial on how you set up Simplify3D to split a model into many processes for that layered color effect. Your multi-color prints look really nice.

Posted: **Fri Jan 22, 2016 8:41 am**

I could be wrong, but my impression is she is using single layer offsets for the different colors, at least for the flattish things like the birds. Each color is extruded to a different height, and a single layer goes on in that color. What I'd be curious to know is how she handles the filament change, which generally requires a carefully coordinated gcode dance. Is there a way to run custom gcode between processes?

That finished mill print is a puzzler, though. I'm guessing painted.

Proficient in both Blender AND OpenSCAD, two of the more, shall we say, acquired tastes in the 3D modeling world... I'm impressed.

Posted: **Fri Jan 22, 2016 2:25 pm**

jsc wrote:That finished mill print is a puzzler, though. I'm guessing painted.

The blog suggested that she used the M2 for prototyping and had the final one done by Shapeways using their nice expensive full-color process. It was going to the Governor's mansion, after all. . .

Posted: **Sat Jan 23, 2016 2:04 am**

jsc wrote:I could be wrong, but my impression is she is using single layer offsets for the different colors, at least for the flattish things like the birds. Each color is extruded to a different height, and a single layer goes on in that color. What I'd be curious to know is how she handles the filament change, which generally requires a carefully coordinated gcode dance. Is there a way to run custom gcode between processes?

Yeah-- with my 3D Model, what I did was raise the details to a height to ensure they were printed by the right color. So with the Cardinal I did

1) 0 - 2.3mm in Red Filament at 0.25mm high layers
2) I then switch to Orange Filament and then print the next 0.3 mm (2.3 - 2.6mm) in 0.10mm high layers
3) Finally I switch to Black Filament and print the remainder of the print (2.6 - 3.0)

If you looked at the side-- you would see a very thin layer of orange underneath the black detailing.

My Manual Filament Switch Process
For the actual filament switch- I used to do that very manually with Simplify3D. I'd watch the print and then under the Tools->Machine Control Panel in the Jog Controls tab:

Pause when it reached the proper spot -- never exact-- I usually caught it after the perimeters when it started infill.

Pause
I lifted the Z up about 30mm.

Raise Z
I did a Retract -100 and pulled out the old filament
I put paper over the print and put in the new filament and Extruded up to 100mm to purge the old color. I Extrude 10mm at a time. That way if I miss the bottom filament path, I can back up right away and try again (and not worry about the filament getting all mangled)
I dropped the Z down 30mm again (which may not be necessary)
I Resumed the print.

I've never done this manual process before in Slic3r, though I do believe it has very similar Machine Control tools.

Multiprocesses in Simplify3D
Putting in Multiple Processes in Simplify3D makes this much easier. I don't have to actively wait for the time to switch-- my process will finish up and I change my filament and start the next one on my time. I still do the Retract and Extrude manually through the Tools-> Machine Control Panel so I can intervene if say, the filament misses the bottom filament path or if I'm seeing the old color isn't all cleaned out, I can extrude some more.

To add an Additional process, Under the Processes section you click Add

: Add New Process

It'll make a copy of your current process. Typical changes:

First off under the Advanced tab you tell it where you want this process to start and end.

Advanced Tab and Layer Modifications
Under the Layers tab, you are typically going to change your First Layer Height to 100% (Not always though--- sometimes the math works out weird-- you'll see it- an example at https://www.flickr.com/photos/tgaw/22522775545/)

First Layer of Additional Process
Under Cooling, you can turn your cooling fan on for the First Layer because this really isn't a First layer. : )
You also have the ability to change up your Start and Ending scripts in the Scripts tab. For little flat things like the birds, you can actually keep it all as it-- it'll just run through the start up procedures and the object is so low it doesn't interfere with Homing the Z Axis. The only tip I have is watch your bed placement. You don't want anything too close to the swiping action. (The preview will show you where the Swipe is)

If you get a little bit of higher objects, you could simply change your Starting Script code to raise the Z before crossing so you don't knock things as you cross. So you just change the line:

Code: Select all

...
G1 X205 Z10 ; move off platform
...

to

Code: Select all

...
G1 Z30; moving the nozzle up to not hit objects as we cross.
G1 X205; move off platform
...

And if you are working with bigger objects and/or you don't want to run through all the start up for each process you can change your ending code to just raise the nozzle up off your object.

Code: Select all

G91; relative mode
G1 Z100; lift 100mm

If you do change your Ending Script, I also recommend M107 to turn off your cooling fan. Not once, but TWICE, I have snapped a blade on my cooling fan when filament slipped out of my hands.

Code: Select all

M107; turn off the cooling fan so Vicky does not snap another cooling fan blade

And then for your next process, the Starting Script would just put it back into Absolute Mode;

Code: Select all

G90; absolute mode

Then you go to Prepare to Print, Simplify3D will ask you which process(es) you want to run. In this case-- you run one at a time.

jsc wrote:That finished mill print is a puzzler, though. I'm guessing painted.

Tim is right-- for me, I did prints in White PLA and BronzeFill, but for the fancy one, I sent over to Shapeways to get done in Full Color Sandstone. I tried painting my white one. And yeah. Painting is not my forte.

Posted: **Sat Jan 23, 2016 4:50 pm**

Hi Vicky - thank you for posting and welcome to the forum!

Rick

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