Glow in the dark plastic.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of fluorescing red ABS.1 But, how sweet would glow in the dark plastic be?
It’s like making all of your printed plastic objects twice as useful, since they can be seen at night as well as day.
With Charles Pax’s recent proof-of-concept of a motorized conveyor belt print platform, we’re going to need some software/firmware changes to make full use of these improvements:
From the video posted on Charles’ site, it looks like he’s managed #3 and #4 already. The extrusion path around the print that we see in Nophead’s prints probably would work at #2. I also seem to recall some (such as Zaggo?) have mounted a toothbrush head on the build platform for auto-wiping of the extruder head.
Returning the platform to 0,0,0 is an interesting proposition. This would seem to work best once the opto-endstops are installed. I’ve got my set of six fully assembled opto-endstops sitting in a box next to my MakerBot because I haven’t really needed them and they tend to get in the way of printing. Although the opto-endstops have been removed from the standard MakerBot kits, I think we may now start to see them returning.
Sometimes when using the ReplicatorG control panel I accidentally hit Z- instead of Z+ to adjust the stage height. As you might imagine, this causes problems. At best, I end up with the Z stage out of whack. At worst, the hot and extruding print head slams into the build platform or model and knocks the Z stage out of whack.
Two possible upgrades would be:
In order to step up production of my Beco Block collection (up to 30 pieces now) I ‘ve been using the Skeinforge multiply feature. Basically you feed it the number of columns and rows and it will make that many of your object in the final Gcode. For my own reference, and hopefully to help others, I’m putting down this little tidbit about Skeinforge’s multiply feature.
The “Multiply->Columns” feature creates additional sets of your object running from the front to the back of your build platform. So, if you have “Multiply->Columns” set to “3” and “Multiply->Rows” set to “1,” you will have three objects in a line running from the front of your Y platform to the back of your Y platform.
The “Multiply->Rows” feature predictably operates in a 90 degree rotation from the “Multiply->Columns” feature, with the additional parts running from side to side. So, if you have “Multiply->Rows” set to “3” and “Multiply->Colums” set to “1,” you will have three objects in a line running from the left to right of your Y platform.
This is a pretty handy feature for production. One caveat – more is not always better. In producing the Beco Block FF pieces I’ve discovered their combined warping is enough to ruin the entire print job (on my unheated build platform). I was printing 2 columns of 3 rows for 6 pieces at a shot. Unfortunately, with the additional warping I don’t have a single usable FF piece.
Foam core build platform, covered in blue painters tape
As the caption suggests, this is just the foam core build platform placed on top of the wooden platform and taped down with blue painter’s tape. The tape has worked very well for my first PLA print, the teapot. I’ll try this new platform setup in a little bit.
Nick Ames has posted a very thorough guide to tuning Skeinforge.
There are some things I like about this guide – such as he suggests keeping extruder speed and platform speed maxed. ;)
I’ll print something up with my current settings, zip those, and then trying this guide out.
I was having some trouble getting my rafts to stick to the build platform until I did the following:
If you’re having raft trouble, do both of the above and don’t look back.