Decorative facade replicated on arched beams at bottom of tower
Tandem printing of both halves at once, with easy snap fit
I’ve only done the one print so far, and there’s still room for further improvement. All the files are at GrabCAD if you want to have a go at it. No complaints about my butchered modeling techniques, please ;-).
Printing tips:
Print directly on base, scale size by 0.266
Inspect your mirror for dust and clean it if necessary. Mine collects dust quicker than I’d like, and it really impacts print quality.
Filter leftover resin through a 100 micron paint strainer between prints (the Eiffel leaves a lot of flakes behind)
Takes about 7 hrs at 0.1 mm resolution
(A note from the Formlabs forum moderators: we recently edited the links in this post to fix broken image links.)
Well done!! I did the mod myself a while back to be able to print the 2 halves at once, but you’ve taken it a step further with the alignment pegs, and all the other improvements!
That’s beautiful. One suggestion: For mating faces, if you remove a thin layer of material across most of the mating face, leaving the perimeter, then that forces the contact to be on the perimeter; a large flat-to-flat mate like you’ve made is likely to wobble if event he smallest bit of dust gets in there. (This is how the bottom of a coffee cup “mates” with a table; if it had a perfectly flat bottom, it would inevitably wobble.)
Since this is the piece that really caught my eye when I first heard about Formlabs, I really want to print this guy on my new Form 2. The last three attempts have failed. The first attempt was a little small, so I thought the trusses were too thin. I scaled it up to the max possible size (because I can ) and it failed as well. I attributed it to a tank that has had quite a few prints already, and I switched to a new tank and a new batch of resin. This third one failed almost the exact same way as the second one did.
Has anyone gotten this to print on a Form 2 with no support? I can add support if needed, but most people have said it should print with no support.
I have printed it a few times on Form 2 without supports. At what scale are you printing it and what resin and layer thickness are you using? My attempts are a 0.261 scale (so the base of the Eiffel tower is 120mm x 120mm), using a general purpose resin (I think it was grey or clear) at 50µm or 100µm layer thickness. What sort of failure modes have you seen?
Craig, I was trying it at 0.290 scale, so it was just about as big as it could possibly be. I tried both grey and black resin. The part that was failing was what I’ve circled in the preform screenshot below.
This is the part of the model that is facing out from the printer and on the left side (away from the wiper). Once that part failed, the whole leg of the tower above it would typically fail as well.
I want to make sure it’s possible before I spend too many more hours and liters of resin trying to get it to work.
I would check your optical window to make sure that there are no smudges or dust in that area. If there are clean it as described here. Similarly make sure there are no fingerprints or resin smudges under the resin tank window. Using 100µm may be the way to go here.
No smudges. The printer is less than a week old, but I checked for smudges anyway.
My last attempt was with a brand new tank and a brand new batch of resin at 0.1mm
I’ll make another attempt at 0.261 scale and see what happens.
Craig, it looks like the problem all three attempts is because of the flat platforms in the trusses like I’ve circled below:
They’re all deformed like they’re sticking to the tray instead of sticking to the rest of the tower. If one of them partially breaks and doesn’t peel properly, it’s game over and the rest of the tower above that point can’t print due to the obstruction on the tray. I went back and looked at all of the Eiffel Tower attempts I’ve made and every single horizontal thin surface is wavy and warped. Is this a problem because of the different peel mechanics of the form 2 or something wrong with my specific printer? I honestly don’t know if I should even expect it to come out as nicely as a form 1 or form 1+.
I was busy printing prototype parts for work all weekend, so I haven’t tried printing at 0.261 scale yet. I’m starting to doubt that I’ll be able to get a great print out of my printer without tilting the part some to make the flat thin platforms come out better. Thoughts? Suggestions?
That was a bit of a trouble spot for the Form 1+ as well (which is why I added holes), although from what you’re reporting it sounds like it may have gotten worse in the Form 2?
I think the new wiper mechanism limits the destructive potential of bits that fail to adhere to the model (by clearing them from the print area), but perhaps it also makes the device slightly less forgiving in cases where those sections may have recovered and re-adhered later to adjacent areas.
I concur with Craig that 100um is the best setting for this model. Also a dumb question, but your build platform is flat and in good condition, right?
You could try modifying the design to arch those flat braces. That would ease the transition and expose less unsupported new surface area per layer to the peel.
My Form 2 is in the shop but when it gets back I can try an Eiffel print for you to see how it goes on my end.
@Heisman The part should print on the Form 2—I found one printed in black @ 100 microns from a few months ago. I printed one recently, and had some issues, though my issues were different from yours (failure higher up) and I was using a very cloudy tank in need of replacement. It may not hurt to reach out to customer support to see if there’s anything our team can look into.
@ExileMachine Awesome, thanks for chiming in. Despite the best of intentions, I hadn’t gotten around to trying one on the Form 2 yet, so it’s great to hear it works.
Out of curiosity, did you do both halves in a single print?
) and it failed as well. I attributed it to a tank that has had quite a few prints already, and I switched to a new tank and a new batch of resin. This third one failed almost the exact same way as the second one did.
