3D printing videos

This week Emily, Danni and I were able to meet with Grant from the Venture Lab and talked about how we could make education videos for the AMP an Venture Lab. Emily and I made a list of topics we should talk about in the videos. Emily and I started writing scripts for each topic to be made into videos. Below is example of our scripts.

Unloading and Loading Filament

Whenever you want to change colors, materials, or just start a new roll of filament, you have to unload your current filament and load a new one.

First, turn on the Prusa with the switch on the side as shown.

Then, we’re going to pre-heat the nozzle. Scroll down to the preheat option and click. Pick the material you’re unloading from the list of options.

When the nozzle has had a minute or two to heat up, we can unload the filament.

Hold on to the filament tightly, and scroll down to the “unload” option on the printer. When you press it, the filament will start to get pushed out. Make sure you help it along by gently pulling.

OK, now we can move on to loading a new filament. Take the old spool off and put on your new spool. If this is the same material, we don’t have to change anything. If you’re switching to another one, it may be helpful to change the pre-heat temperature for the right material.

Snip off the end of the filament, just to get any irregularities out.

Then we’re going to put it into this hole here. Make sure it’s going straight down, and not bent off to the side.

Push the filament into the hole firmly but without damaging it. Then scroll down to “Load filament” and press the button.

It should suck the filament right in. After a few seconds you’ll start to see your old filament purging out onto the plate. Soon it should fade into your new filament. The screen will ask you if the color is clear. Compare the strand to the spool. You might have to cycle through purges a few times before the color is completely clean.

And that’s it. You’re ready to start printing with your new filament.

INFILL
The prusa printers allow us to print with different type of infill. You can choose what infill you want to be used in your print by using the the PRUSA 3D slicer software.

First thing you do is to pull up the software. The program default is to bring you to the platter tab. To be able to change the infill, you need to go to the print setting tab on the top left corner.

On the left you will see a list of different properties you can alter for your print. Click on Infill.

For infill, the default is 20%. For most prints, 20% infill is sufficient. You would want to increase the percentage of infill when you want to increase the strength of your part. You can go longer than 20% when you are not worried about strength. Also, when you don’t want to use a lot of filament.

The next thing you can change is the type of fill pattern.  There are 12 different patterns you choose from. I will talk about only 4 infills.

Rectangular: is the most common for general prints but it offers no real benefit over some of the other's. It's simple and often a default in printing software.

Wiggle: Only use this pattern if you want a part that can twist and have a little bit of flexibility. This infill offers the least amount of rigidity.

Triangular: offers great strength and high lateral loads. This infill gives you good wall strength and is good for long, slender structures.

Hexagon, also known as honeycomb: this the best infill for strength vs material. This pattern is the most efficient infill and is the fastest to print. This infill will save you time and money. This infill offers high strength.

You can reduce your printing time by changing how often you combine infill layers.

CUT

If you are worried that your part is too tall to print without supports, or if you only want to print some of your part, you can do use the cut function. The cut function allows you to cut your part at the height that you want to.

First, you need to load your part. Make sure it is oriented correctly. Once the part is how you want it, click the cut button on the top of the page. Move the Z clicker to wear you want the part to be cut. Under keep, you can decide if you want to keep only the upper part, lower part of both parts. Once you are sure it is how you want, click perform cut.

SPLIT

Some files have multiple parts. When you load models, sometimes all the parts get loaded as one part. You might not want this because you might not want to print every part, or you might want to resize one part and not another. To separate the model, you need to click the split button at the top of program. Each file separates into an individual file. You can now move one part without moving everything else. You can also change the scale for just one part. Or you can delete a part if you no longer need it.

INCREASING THE NUMBER OF COPIES

You might have a part loaded and decided that you want to print multiple copies of that part. Instead of pushing the add button and uploading the part again, you can change the amount of copies you have of a part by clicking the plus sign inside the green circle.  This will increase the number of copies by increments of one. You can also do this by right clicking on the part and selecting increase copies. If you want to decrease the amount of copies you have, you can either click on the minus sign button at the top or right click on the part and choose decrease copies. If you want to have a lot of copies of your part and you don't want to keep on pushing the plus button you can right click the part, select set number of copies and type in how many copies you want.