Has anyone printed something like this? Odds of get it right?

I’m wondering if something like this would print fine…

I wanted to print a similar cube, however, After playing around with the cube, I couldn’t get the orientation right without using a lot of supports (more than twice the amount of resin than the actual model, or it would fail because of parts floating in limbo. Therefore I quit and went on with printing customer products ;). Looking forward to the results if you try it :slight_smile:

Formlabs printed something similar as a Kickstarter incentive it can be done.

the one I’m referring too I think is a bit more complex. I started the print, will be like 10 hours… so will see tonight what I get when I get back home.

Oh yes, I remember printing all the gyro cubes. Odds of getting it right first time are low, needs some careful thought around orientation / supports and usually that takes a bit of trial and error.

We printed 4 ring gyro cubes straight up, making sure you evenly support around each individual ring. I would try to minimize / turn off any internal supports beyond supporting each ring at the base. Support clean up will not be fun whatever you do. Use the flush cutters and patience!

cleaning up supports is not fun at all…

Shouldn’t it be printable without supports (apart from the faces facing the base)?

that is an interesting thing to test, I would if the resin wouldn’t be that expensive… I think without the supports some parts might get deformed or fall apart…

So if you look at the stl it is clearly designed to be printed directly to the bed with no supports on something like an FFM printer. This would also work on a platform down SLA printer like the ones that submerge your print into a vat. However the Form1+ is a platform up printer with a peel process which adds an extra variable. Currently with PDMS as the tank material and using Formlabs current resin and curing settings, and the withthe current peel speed printing it as it was intended to be printed on an FFM machine with no supports would likely fail due to blowouts in the early layers. Look at the model and picture what the first layers will look like. They will look something like a set of nested circles. Since these circles are closed off they will create a closed area during the peel and return process. Often times when this is the case the pressure difference iinside this closed area versus outside becomes so great that the walls blow out leaving holes as the pressure equalizes.

You misunderstood me.
I wrote:

without supports (apart from the faces facing the base)

I.e. rotated at a conveniently oblique angle, with manual supports connecting only the bottom facing parts to the platform.

Speaking of blowouts, i still don’t get why Formlabs doesn’t revise their platform so it’s a thin perforated plate (mounted on a carrier) instead of the current design. I mean, i get it, someone is very proud of the product design, and it would be slightly messier to handle after a print, but seriously… it’s a very small tradeoff for way less issues during printing.

well, it was a good print. Was a pain to remove the supports and had to file the pins that make it spin because were to tight.

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wow… what happened with the photos???

I don’t get it what do you mean?

If it is a perforated plate there will probably be much chances for failure caused by bubbles caused when the platform foes up and down… But I wonder what would happen if they would make a heated platform, something you can heat once is done, it might make removal a lot easier.

Most of the broken pieces I had so far, if not all, are caused because of the tension of flex causes by the excessive force done to remove the piece

@Ante_Vukorepa, I’m with @RocusHalbasch; what do you mean exactly? As far as I can judge only a perforated model would prevent blowouts as your perforated plate would just have supports sticking to them? Or maybe I’m assessing this the wrong way?

What i’ve meant is - you can print without a base and supports, directly on the platform, without worrying about vacuum, “tides” of resin and blowouts ripping your print apart. You can even print supports directly to the base, yeah, but that’s not much of a benefit.

What you can do, for example, is print a shelled object directly onto the base (assuming it’s bottom is open). You could also print an object such as the one from the OP without a base and supports.

Probably heavily dependent on the resin, but i haven’t had issues like that with Makerjuice resins, for example. There are no bubbles or blowouts due to platform motion. Of course, in my case, the peeling motion is slightly different than Form1’s - the platform itself tilts, instead of the VAT. I’m not sure if that makes it worse or better, as far as potential for bubbling is concerned.

Hmmm a perforated platform might help some blowouts, such as a single shell directly to the platform without supports. However it seems like it would be much harder to remove a part which is already quite difficult, and it would only prevent problems where one wall of the closed cell was the platform. Trying to print a hollow sphere on supports would still result in blowouts. I think theRe is probably a better all purpose solution out there.

Well, it would help whenever/wherever there’s a big influx of resin during a peel that might damage stuff. Does it solve all the problems? Nope. But, like i’ve said, it makes the restrictions on the way you can print things slightly looser :slight_smile:

It’s true that it’s harder to remove the prints from the platform, yeah. There’s quite a bit of scraping involved, although repeated rinses with hot/cold/hot/cold water usually loosen things up enough that a blade works, like with a flat platform.

It’s also messier - if you flip the platform over, you’re going to get drips everywhere - you need to drain it and pat it with some paper towels before you move it away from the vat.

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