Printing with PLA again! [10/18/2010]

[I’ve been printing in PLA pretty much exclusively for several years now since it’s got way less particulates and VOC’s compared to ABS.  However, back in the early days of MakerBot, printing with PLA was fraught with problems.  It printed inconsistently, it was hard to dial in temperature and speed settings, and it caused constant extruder clogs.  I think a large part of this was probably due to the design of early extruder nozzles.  You had to very carefully build and wrap your own extruders back then and if heat creeped up the nozzle into the filament, it was easy to create a blockage.  Modern nozzles have huge heat sinks which help prevent these issues.]

Yesterday I printed with PLA until my MK5 Plastruder jammed. I could print off a single pawn piece from Cliff Biffle’s brilliant chess set, but when I tried 9 at a time it stopped extruding. ¹

I had the Skeinforge settings all fouled up.  I thought I was testing print quality starting at 200 degrees Celsius and decreasing at 5 degree increments.  Instead, when I stopped

1. The Lost Blog Posts
2. Plastruder! [Draft 12/25/2009]
3. UNTITLED [Draft 12/25/2009]
4. Preparing to print [Draft 12/27/2009]
5. More prints [Draft 01/04/2010]
6. Prototype Pricing [Draft 01/19/2010]
7. MakerBot tuning [Draft 01/20/2010]
8. Plastic Screw Anchor [Draft 02/02/2010]
9. Magic [Draft 02/03/2010]
10. How are you printing with PLA? [Draft 02/16/2010]
11. Rebuilding my extruder [Draft 02/16/2010]
12. MY robot [Draft 02/18/2010]
13. more things i learned [Draft 02/20/2010]
14. First commissioned piece! [Draft 02/22/2010]
15. MakerBot: Toy or Tool? [02/25/2010]
16. Idea for Skeinforge settings… [Draft 03/27/2010]
17. RepRap and MakerBot alternatives [Draft 04/05/2010]
18. RepRap Parts for Sale [Draft 04/07/2010]
19. Where is the Othercutter? [Draft 06/08/2015]
20. Mendel Parts – Printed, Cast, CNC’d, Lasercut or Injection Molded? [Draft 04/12/2010]
21. MakerBot Operator’s Manual [06/04/20210]
22. MakerBot on CBS! [07/07/2010]
23. New Print: Soft-Pawed Albino Stoat of South Wales Cookie Cutter [07/07/2010]
24. House calls [07/11/2010]
25. Digital assistant? [08/05/2010]
26. MakerBot + Junk = Stuff! [08/06/2010]
27. Design choices in RepRap, Goals of RepRap [08/14/2010]
28. Upgrades and obsolescence [08/25/2010]
29. Dear Anonymous [08/25/2010]
30. The ultimate in customer service [08/26/2010]
31. Open Source Makes You Smarter [08/27/2010]
32. Getting my Plastruder MK5 running [09/06/2010]
33. Weird new kind of spam [09/19/2010]
34. An open letter to Ms. Word [10/18/2010]
35. Printing with PLA again! [10/18/2010]
36. Halloween costume too [10/27/2010]
37. Dream jobs [10/29/2010]
38. The nuances of time travel [10/31/2010]

1. When using Skeinforge’s multiple feature, it’s easier to create an array of 3×3 pawns to fit on the platform than it is to create an array of 2×4 to get exactly 8 pieces [↩]