3D Printer

TinkerMill has a variety of 3D printers available for your use. Some require additional training for use (SLA printers), but general-purpose plastic printers can be used by anyone.

FDM Printing

Quick Start Guide

If you want to get printing right away, you can use one of the Dell laptops in the printing area. The software that's preferred for slicing and printer control is Simplify3D.

Simply import your desired STL(s), select a profile for printing (the default is JV_FFCP2). After the part is sliced, you can either print directly to either of the CreaterPro printers, or export the gcode to an SD card. There are several on the bench for your use, please do not take the SD cards home.

It is ideal if you can stay around to watch a print, however, unlike most machines in TinkerMill, the 3D printers may be ran unsupervised as prints can take many hours to complete. In these circumstances, please leave a note on the machine with your name and telephone number and make every effort to retrieve the parts when the print is complete. Unattended parts will be discarded.

Costs

Plastics cost about $0.10 per gram. There are two small AWS scales for weighing completed prints and print attempts. There is a jar where users are expected to donate money for all attempted prints.

Safety

Please allow parts to cool for about 15 minutes once a print is complete. It will be easier to remove once cooled.

FlashForge Creator Pro (FFCP)

There are two of these printers available for use. These are dual-extruder machines and there are laptops available for slicing/printing.

The manual for this printer can be found at the following link: www.flashforge-usa.com

Additional guidance on using the FFCP.

Lulzbot Taz

The Lulzbot Taz printer is favored for larger prints and higher production. This machine is a modified Lulzbot Taz5 which has been refitted with a Flexion extruder and Duet3d control board running RepRapFirmware. This printer is primarily set up for PETG filament. Other filaments may be used but are untested as of this time (Oct-27-2021). For filaments other than PETG it is up to users to determine machine parameters and slicing profiles as required. Your mileage may vary. PETG filament is used on this machine because PETG has proven to be robust while working in open air and larger and thicker section parts. Precious few large/thick parts will be successful using ABS on this machine.

The Duet3d/RepRapFirmware controlled printers work very differently than our other filament printers. These machines have both a graphical touch screen and use Duet Web Control. The Duet Web Control is the primary interface to the machine when preparing the printer and working with jobs. This web page is visible by any machine connected to the Tinkermill network using the printer's IP address. The workflow for preparing jobs on the Duet3d machines has some very important differences compared to our other filament printers.

Getting Started

Basic Workflow

Job preparation

Slicing Operations

The primary slicer we use is Simplify3D. Any slicer maybe used for preparing jobs but the PETG slicing profile in our local copy of Simplify3D is configured specifically for the Taz and contains the best-tested parameters we have. If you find or know of some good parameters please share!

The current go-to slicing profile is PETG_TAZ0.4? This profile is set up for the Taz using PETG with a 0.4mm nozzle and (should) contain the best known general purpose parameters.

Slicing parameters

The current Taz configuration with PETG performs relatively poorly in bridging compared to ABS in our other printers. As a result slicing parameters are largely driven by the need for surface quality on top surfaces and in transitions.

* Infill below 15% is not recommended.

* Tighter infill patterns (i.e. rectilinear) and/or solid infill angles which reduce the maximum open span are recommended. Open infill patterns (such as hexagonal) and angles which create larger spans will lead to open or distorted to surfaces.

* 4 Top layers is recommended using the points above. The first three layers will close most gaps and create a decent surface for the 4th layer. 3 Layers may work depending on part geometry or expectations. In my experience 2 Layers will only work in rare circumstances.

* 3 Outer perimeters is generally 3 is recommended to help with closure on sloping or blended surfaces. 2 Layers will work for walls with more vertical angles.

You do not need an SD card. Save the job in the desired directory.

Printer Operations

TODO DWC instruction page

Check Filament

Upload the job

TODO DWC simulating jobs

TODO Start

The printing will start when the heaters have reached their setpoints.

SLA Printing

Resin settings

Elegoo Brand Resin Settings

Siraya Tech Resin Settings