First failed print and adaptive layer thickness

General Discussion
1

Been up and running with a new Form 3 for 4 days, doing one ~4 hr print each day, and had my first fail. So I feel like a real 3D printer guy now :^)

I’m designing small molded plastic parts with very fine detail (which is why we chose and SLA printer) and I’m using 0.025 mm layer thickness.

But I’ve yet to figure out a routine to manage prints that take longer than my typical 9 hour work day.

Q1: Is it OK to let the printer run over night if it means that the completed print will sit on the build plate for hours before being washed.

Q2: I tried adaptive layering for the first time to speed up the print that failed. Could this be the cause of the fail?

Unfortunately, I was a bad little engineer and made other changes (support contact point size and density), so I can’t say for sure which variable caused the fail.

Q3 is it common to have little shrink puckers at the support points? My flat bottomed part is riddled with them like a teenager with acne.

FWIW, I did see striations perpendicular to the Z axis. From what I’ve found searching this forum, that my likely have been caused by the adaptive layering function.

Any thoughts?

2

Q1: Yes. Been doing it that way for years. More than one day, even. But I’ve found parts can be harder to remove form the build plate if they sit on the build plate too long.

Q2: Can’t comment. Haven’t used it.

Q3: Yes, the supports leave “pimples” that have to be removed by hand. If the parts you’re printing are small, you might be able to reduce the support contact-point size significantly, and so reduce how much post-processing is required.

3

thanks for your reply