3D Printing, Day 3

It got better.

Tweaked the bed levelling (manually) a tiny little bit, and then set about printing a hinged print-in-place calibration-check cube, on fine settings in the Creality slicer. First attempt at 195 C nozzle and 70 C bed left us with a cube that looked okay but the base layers were slumping and the hinge was fused. Tried it again with a hotter nozzle (203C – because we tried 205 C initially but it was a little bit drippy placing down the initial lines) and back to a 60C bed.

And it came out beautifully.

The hinge hinges silky-smooth, the letters are sharply defined, the layers are apparent but not defective as such, and the cube measures exactly 20.0 mm on all sides using a set of digital calipers. Huzzah!

We also moved the printer to its forever-home. We bought a Trotten cabinet from IKEA. It perfectly fits the space we have, has storage, and has metal shelves above the main surface. We intend to get some clear plastic (shower curtain, probably) and use magnets to form a shroud around the top frame. This will give us a flexible enclosure that will keep drafts off and allow for a more uniform temperature. And we’ll be able to see through it too.

We also printed a few K2 Filament Clips (https://www.printables.com/model/292793-k2-filament-clip) to keep the end of used filament spools under control. Printed fast, and really quite effective!

And we also did our first “bigger” print — a small bin to put scrap filament from failed prints 🙂 The print was this bin: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2817271 but scaled 50% and set to print at “normal” print quality. It took 6.75 hrs to print the bin and the top. We’re happy with the quality! There are no major problems with it, but there are a few surface blemishes on the front face (which, wow, really stand out in the photo but aren’t as bad as it looks in real life – some of it might be the painting of the lettering). No big deal.

All-in-all, a good day. Quite happy with how things are set up now. Onward to printing more challenging things, and designing our own stuff!