Der Froschkönig - Lowrider 3 in Oldenburg, Germany

Well you made me second guess myself. I went down and looked at my build and kept thinking, “pretty sure that will work, I must be missing something”

All good, you’re keeping me on my toes.

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Curious, is that a Matte PLA (with glitter…) or something else? Noticed layer adhesion isn’t as good for my Matte Black PLA Overture, compared to regular Black PLA (glossy). Am trying to improve layer adhesion by increasing temperature, and drying out the Matte PLA before printing. Didn’t think PLA benefited from drying out, but interwebs suggested to, what say you guys?

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My dry boxes store stuff below 30% humidity, which gives you an idea of how wet the atmosphere can be. Most PLA filaments don’t lose any weight in the drying process (for me), some do so it’s easy to tell how much water is lost. I’ve found that with a cheaper PLA “drying” it even if that doesn’t remove moisture helps to avoid stringing and improve adhesion. I had awful trouble with a no-name brand and “drying” did help - perhaps it’s somehow tempering whatever the binders are?

Good quality PLA (Prusament) does absorb a tiny amount of moisture but it seems to be able to deal with it (in my experience)

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The PLA is fine, I only once had a roll that was brittle from dasfilament.de. Normally it’s really good, and nearly as expensive as Prusament (but without the high shipping costs). I also have all my filament in dryboxes, though I really need to bake my beads, they are nearly completely green. :smiley:

The little thingy broke when I tried to pry out the belt again. The screwdriver might have been a bit too much for the tiny thing. :frowning: The next one did well.

I am nearly finished with the Froschkönig, just the controller box has to be made, but for that the CNC has to run. :slight_smile: Also: squaring. I need to figure out how to adress a pin on my board (see other topic), then I can autosquare as well.

Is there a reason why you’re going with plywood at the bottom?

Because MDF is not airtight. For the last vacuum table I needed to smear so much stuff on it to just be like, maybe, 70% airtight (Vacuum Table - Work in Progress, Vacuum Table for the MPCNC using Household Vaccum)… I used sealer and then wood glue watered down. Plywood will leave nothing through and I will skip all the messy parts. :smiley:

Oh, ok, that makes sense.
Maybe not the best topic to discuss this but wouldn’t it be better to only use your spoilboard for the vacuum hold down (or a removable layer above), instead of the full torsion box?

That’s how I am currently planning to do so, taking ideas from here; DIY vacuum clamp / stand unit - YouTube

I used to think the PLA humidity problems were all bogus, because I have never had problems. But the relative humidity in my office averaged about 18% in the last 24hrs. So maybe the reason I don’t have problems is because of where I live.

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Gets too thick. :slight_smile: The thing on youtube is small. Mine holds 600x1200 sheets.

I’ve never managed to get my dry boxes below 20%! :smiley:

I really need to do some research on making some dry boxes for all my printers. Y’all with that low humidity have it so much better than you realize lol

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Yeah, I feel your pain. You may or may not find something useful in THIS thread.
We’re going through a dry patch at the moment, but here’s the current humidity readings at 12:45am - just as well it’s cool, or I’d be up all night on the computer instead of trying to sleep! :wink:

Oh! and welcome to tomorrow everyone! :smiley:

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I made those dryboxes (Printables), combined with magnetic connectors (Printables). They are really good (when you add a little spacer between the rolls).

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I only need to fasten a few screws for the back strut plate, drag chains for X and I need a button for the autosquare, but besides that I am done.

Running the lowrider with 8000mm/min for travel. I did try 20000 just for the lulz, but one motor was skipping steps and it ended up twisted. :sweat_smile: Nothing broken though. I also rammed into an endstop, but I was able to bend it back.

Temporary spoilboard in place for cutting the control box.

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Not sure?

Yes the item in the video has a different size, but it was meant more on how the thing is constructed, as I am not sure if 1 or 2 venturi systems would pull enough for large formats (and how much air your compressor needs to pull).

If you’d take a 10mm multiplex and glue a 5mm mdf onto it, you have an acceptable thick spoilboard of 15mm?

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The channels for the vacuum table get cut in the table. I just hid the pipes in the torsion box, in the last version they were below the table, just didn’t look good. On top of the grid I am going to put an MDF board as spoilboard. I have a two-stage sidechannel blower that does a good job holding large workpieces. Small ones do not work though. :frowning:

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Oh ok, now I understand.

Regarding the small pieces, it makes sense as there is a) a smaller area for hold down and b) probably you are loosing capacity around the object. You could try to cover the unused areas with for example plastic so you can obtain a larger vacuum.

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@vicious1 Is the tension okay? It feels too loose, but it does make a sound.

Yeah. Best to always stay on the loose side. A few test cuts of pen plots will verify tension easily. When you do the squaring you can verify the total length per belt.

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First work done with the lowrider! It just sounds softer when moving, over are the times of the chatter in the middle. :slightly_smiling_face:

I have a 0.22mm difference between the two sides on Z, I think I can live with that. The other axis’ seem to be on point, though I could only roughly measure. :smiley:

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