Wild difference in printing times between old Preform, new Preform and Reality!

[kevinduhe]

So my company started another round of printing 2 days ago. I printed two pieces and they came out fine, and almost exactly the right amount of time Preformed claimed. One was 7 hrs, other was 3 hrs. So I loaded up my last and biggest piece, it said 17hrs. That kinda blew my mind because I had printed that piece before, and save for a few minor changes…it’s the same piece. This was on version 2.7.x. I contacted support to ask them what could be causing the difference…last time I printed the piece it was 12 hrs.

Later that day, before I heard back, 2.8.0 was released. So I updated and tried printing it again…now it said 13hrs 55 mins. Confused, I fired off another email to support, hit print and went home (please save me the warnings of unattended prints)

I got the text in the middle of the night that the print had finished in 12hr 22 mins.

I get how times can vary slightly due item alignment, support structure, resin type/color and planet alignment, but 17 hrs to 12 hrs is a big difference. What could cause this? BTW all of this was done with white v01 @ 0.1mm.

[Zachary_Brackin]

Did you change anything about the file?

[kevinduhe]

Between the last time I printed it (maybe 2 months ago) till now, yes very minor changes. a few thousands of an inch here and there. Between loading it up in the different versions of preform in the past 48 hours, no…no changes. Same file, no changes loaded up in 2.7x ≈ 17 hrs. Loaded up in 2.8.0 ≈ 14 hrs, actual print time ≈ 12hrs. Loaded the same way, flat against the surface, tilted up about 15 degrees (any more and it will be outside the build area), supports added.

I get it…nothing to get into a tizzy about…I’m just curious as to what might cause such different print times. Maybe it just boils down to planetary alignment!

• Kevin