i am ready to run the bed temp calibration print for this material but the provided diagnostic print file is for nylon 12. The operations manuals and guides dont have any insights.
I am reviewing the different print settings for each material for discrepancies but has anyone else run this print in this situation? Am i being overly cautious?
It’s hard to say for sure if running the Nylon 12 tuning print could cause any issues, so I’d definitely recommend giving support a quick call or email to confirm. They’ve usually been pretty quick to respond in my experience.
When I did my tuning print, I sent support photos of each plaque before applying the offset. The “Inspect the plaques” guidelines didn’t quite match what I was seeing, so having them review everything gave me some peace of mind that I was interpreting the results correctly.
I found a significant amount of differences in the material print profile so i went ahead and opened a ticket.
Hi @CARobertM, this is Austin from the Product Integrity team at Formlabs. We are currently beta testing a bed temperature tuning print for Nylon 12 GF powder, so the print file is not publicly available at this time. Have you reached out to customer support? We can get you set up with the print file and help review the results to get your printer dialed in.
I have created a support ticket as well as emailed the sales rep and a service rep i have spoken to recently. No responses yet.
Should i run the bed temperature test with the nylon 12 profile or hold off?
I am also interested in any models that formlabs might have for showing off machine capabilities. I have an open material license and plan on testing some 3rd party materials, having a baseline model will be helpful.
Thanks again.
Gotcha, since each material has its own unique print settings, dialing in a printer to work well for one powder may not translate perfectly to another. This link is to our Nylon 12 GF bed temp tuning print for Fuse 1+ 30W. It is an FLZ file that you can upload to your printer through PreForm using “Upload Diagnostic Print.”
It sweeps across a narrower range of bed temperatures than our Nylon 12 print because GF powder exhibits higher sensitivity to small changes in bed temperature.
A few possible outcomes are:
The print completes, and the plaque with a small amount of orange peel texture on the cones and no obvious dimpling on the grid represents the bed temperature offset you should apply to the printer (it might be 0).
The print fails due to curl/drag: this indicates that the plaque being printed at the time of failure was being printed too cold. You can apply a +1C offset to the printer’s bed temperature and run the print again to find the ideal offset.
The print completes, but none of the plaques have orange peel on the cones: this indicates the printer is still running too hot. You can apply a -1C offset to the bed temperature and run the print again to identify the ideal offset.
The last thing to note is that the offsets are cumulative - for instance if you run the print with your printer at -1C, and the resulting plaque labeled “-0.5C” is the ideal one, this means the ideal offset for your printer is -1.5C.
Let me know if you run into any trouble with this process!
To your question about models that show off machine capabilities, I don’t have any handy right now that we are able to share with customers, but I’ll ask around. Looking forward to seeing what you end up printing!
thank you so much for the file and the context.
If there is any way to get the stl of the test plate, that would be awesome.
I am looking forward to the future prints as well.
The exact geometry is proprietary, but if you want to make your own torture test I can share some insights:
Thin cross sections with a lot of volume below (ex: the very last layer of a sphere) will exacerbate dimpling (top surface caves in). This effect gets worse as the bed temp and laser exposure increase.
Expanding areas (ex: inverted cones) will exacerbate curling, which can show up as bad finish on the sidewalls of parts, or as a failed print due to dragging. This effect gets worse as the bed temp and laser exposure decrease.
this is very useful info for future testing. Thank you
The bed calibration print seemed to finish fine. i havent run the plates through the blast yet (still waiting on blast media) but so far the only defects i have seen is detail loss in some of the very fine lettering on the underside of a couple plates. No draggin and the post print videos look smooth.
I wish on of the capture categories was post lasing, timelapses are popular with my coworkers.
I wish i had the capability to develop my own turning prints. This and a workflow for testing should be standard with Open Material Mode.
Are you running your Fuse with OMM? How are you liking it?
I have not used OMM yet. I am still working with the initial delivery of GF Nylon 12. I probably wont start making custom profiles for a while. I need to develop a standard workflow for material testing.
The printer captures a photo both before and after recoat. These images are then stitched together into timelapse-like videos. The video file labeled “BEFORE_RECOAT” should be what you’re looking for. I’ve attached an example photo (videos are too large to share) from a print I ran. Let me know if you are unable to find this video file in the downloadable logs package from PreForm.
Oh man, it would be cool to have a vid like that. Is it only available in OMM?
Agreed, it’s very cool to see the print timelapse. You can go into “Job Setup” in PreForm and click “Download Logs”. It’ll generate a zip folder with these videos, screenshots, and print/maintenance/error history. It’s been useful for me in troubleshooting recently!
The video logs will be helpful and timelapses are always good for sending to coworkers.
I wish the video stream was a main feature, not something buried in a configuration menu.
I really wish I could trigger video streaming, or even just trigger a snapshot capture based on machine activity using the API.
Tuning went well. I chose - 1°C
0.5 & 1.0 C had significant dimpling and other defects. Those were the only two plates where not every internal disc would spin. I was able to loosen all of the others with a socket.
Looks like it must be a feature of OMM. When I download the log it shows as a “formlabs file” and cant be opened. Over 1GB in size.
You aren’t looking for the log file. You’re looking for the History option. This will download a zip file with several videos and a couple log files.
Ahh, I see that now. Ill give it a try. I’ve got a print going I wonder if it can handle both tasks!
Edit- I downloaded it, wow that’s so cool! I’ve been running these machines for more than 2 years and didn’t know I had access to this lol.
