I had not spent nearly as much time rebuilding my MPCNC as I would have liked, Full time work, Uni study, a budding small business and kids have left me with very little time to indulge in hobbies.
I have made progress though. I have successfully reprinted the parts and assembled the Middle assembly. Taulman Tech-G is proving a great material. I’ve settled on printing everything with 2 perimeters, 2 top/bottom solid layers, and 35% honeycomb infill (with a 0.4mm nozzle). I experimented and found this to be more than adequate for strong, rigid parts, higher numbers of perimeters/solid layers and infill ultimately made very little difference to rigidity, and consumed much more filament per part.
The only part I printed differently was the stepper mounts. These IMO are the most critical parts in the machine in terms of rigidity. These instead were printed in Taulman N-Vent with 3 perimeters, 3 top/bottom solid layers and 70% infill. N-Vent is a very interesting material. Its far more rigid than PETG, much closer to Poly-carbonate (if anyone has played around with Polymaker PC Plus?) but much less brittle. Honestly it is the best filament I have ever used!! Period.
The only downside I can find is the price. It’s about 4x the price of PETG and almost 2x the price of Poly-carbonate. But if I could afford it, I’d print everything in this. It prints beautifully, it’s very strong, and it looks absolutely gorgeous. Its so pretty in fact that I had to do a quick vid, because pictures don’t do it justice (nor does my poor quality phone video either for that matter).
I hope to have the MPCNC Mark II up and running over the next fortnight, I actually need it to complete a (paying) job that I have taken on. I now have a small 3d printing/rapid prototyping business that is slowly growing.
I have to send out another quick thanks to Ryan for sharing this awesome design. It was the last piece in the puzzle, so to speak, in getting my business off the ground. I won’t be able to quit work any time soon, but it is a start, and falls in line with the study I am doing (engineering) and the trade I currently work in (automotive drag/circuit cars).
I printed all my parts with makergeek pla filament, I will post some pics in a little while, I think it looks great very vibrate and has been very strong
If anybody in the US is looking for good cheap pet-g, micro center brand is pretty good. It’s what I’ve been using since I started printing. It helps that I have 2 micro centers within an hour from me.
Wow. I can never get my n-vent prints to look that good. I’m using a ReRap Prusa i3 derivative and Simplify3D at 250C/75C on a borosilicate glass bed. Can you share your settings? Thanks!
Sorry for the slow reply mate. I don’t get to visit the forum as much as I would like. Time restraints. I posted a link to my Slic3r config file (the one I use for N-vent) in reply to your post on the youTube vid.
I use very similar settings to my Tech-G (PETG) config. I set the Z height a little higher (prints are impossible to remove from the build tac otherwise) and reduce the retraction settings slightly (ooze/blobs are not really an issue with N-Vent even with a 0.4mm nozzle) I also print at the upper range of the recommended temp settings (255deg C) Print bed is set to 70deg C, higher than the recomeneded but I found this prevented any minor warping on large flat prints (the solder-less stepper mounts wanted to curl slightly due to the upper layers cooling too rapidly).
I print very slow (my printer requires this for decent quality) and I think it helps with N-Vent in particular for that very clean/smooth finish.
If you can share some pics of your results, I’m sure myself or some other of the more experienced 3d printers out there will offer some sage like advise.
All I can say is settings. I printed maybe 25-30 test cubes with very minor adjustments made to slic3r settings each time. To compare the first one printed in N-vent to the last one, is like comparing chalk to cheese.
I do this with every new filament I buy. I am still fine tuning the Polymaker PC Plus I have on hand. It is proving the most challenging material I have printed to date. Warping is horrible, like ABS but different. It refuses to stick to anything but build tac, but removing even the smallest part is next to impossible, plus everything must be printed on a raft (a bit like nylon). Its a pity because it has a lot of excellent properties. The strength and rigidity is insane!! This is one material where a heated build chamber would be awesome.
All the blue and green is printed in makergeek pla. I am about to order some petg from them and will let you know how it turns out. You can get 2 random color spools in that ever material you like for 33 shipped I think.
