Sooo it so happened that YouTube threw a this clip at me and I just had to print it. I’ve been stressing over the prospects of printing foaming plastic but I’ve bit the bullet…
Here’s the video that hooked me, I think he mentioned in one of his videos that he printed it on a X1C…
I followed Bambu’s recommendation to dry the filament, I dried it for 8Hr at 55 degrees, I also manually calibrated it, it came out at k-0.05, Flow 0.6, Default print settings other than those required for 2 Top and Bottom layers with an Infill of 3%.
This print is a practice run before printing in ASA-Aero…wish me luck…
A productive day so far, no real issue thus far, the only thing I’d like to play with is Retraction, I’ve read it’s a no no but I like tinkering…
My thoughts are to find the amount that’s just sufficient to relive pressure in the nozzle while it’s traveling…
Njoroge, what LW PLA are you using ? those prints look fantastic, I have been trying to print the 3Dlabprints J-3 cub with the oveture LW-PLA but getting very inconsistent prints using the A1
Bambu Lab’s very own, the secrets ingredient is to dry it as recommended followed by a full “calibration I did mine manually”. I’ve converted a sealed tapware to include rollers at the bottom so the reel rolls as smooth as possible, seems to work, printed at 220C…
As this is my first print of a plane, I’ve been very conservative with temperature but now I have files to play with I’ll be experimenting.
I believe that it might be the case of having to calibrate the filament for whichever temperature you chose to print at every time.
My observation; printing Bambu’s Aero PLA is that the print settings are spot on, I’ve had 2 failures of the thinnest area lifting off the build plate.
The lifting off the plate was my fault, oily flinger, I’ve determined a need to wash the build plate every third print with dish soap and very hot water, I have 2 plates on the go.
In summary;
1,“although not recommended by Bambu” I tried the Bambu’s Textured plate.
2, Temperature 220.
3, External feed, reel on rollers.
4, Kept the glass top on as the AMS sits on it.
5, Printer door abjure.
6, Reduced the Camber flow to 50%.
7, Must Calibrate the filament at the temperature you chose to print at.
This is a mixture of sanded and not sanded the darker is not sanded.
I’ll post pictures of the artifacts which are to be expected but none of which has any significant effect or affect of the final model in your hands and as seen in the pictures above.
I found that the parts looked pretty nice if I did they one at a time. If I tried to do multiples on a plate, there was alot of cleanup. Never tried sanding.
“just an experiment”, I printed at uncalibrated 260C and shaved off 2gm off this part, the result is such that there’s no pinholes although at 220C there’re some very tiny ones where the wall are very thin.
The higher temperature has produced a more consistent skin with more artifacts, cleaning is very easy and sanded easily. The down side is the ooze tends to blob in thin slots such as for hinges.
I’ll cad a model to test minimum temperature and flow rate that eliminates pin holes.
The model used up 400gm of filament which I hope is enough for my next print of a Dark-star twin 40.
The standard G.code is just too busy for Foaming Filament, Nozzle purge should be at the back of the printer and only one pass with a final purge of say 2 Skirt Loops.
The one thing I’m missing is the ability to determine the starting point on the XY plane by physically entering the coordinates as you can in Simplify3D otherwise I’m happy to play and learn…
Here’s the completed print, I’ve designed a mod for EDF such that it’s super easy to mount the EDF straight without having to guess, also the EDF will be held in place by it’s cover.
Quick update, I haven’t flown it yet as I just took delivery of batteries couple of days ago, weather has been bad. While I wait I’ve decided to start on the Dark Star 40mm BBL PLA-Aero, this time round I’ve opted to test the highest nozzle temp for this filament @ 260C and dried for 10Hr @ approximately 60C
The initial print has printed awesome so far, the black band is off the nozzle’s residue of black ASA which I’ been printing before.
Latest update on the BBL PLA-LW, having finished the fuselage of the Dark Star and on the last part I noticed the filament wasn’t behaving as it did out of the oven many hours later.
I started the Dark Star from around half way of the roll and after 10Hr of drying, I’ve just put it back into the oven as I suspect the heat hadn’t degassed the filament as it’s quit tight in the roll.
The hydrometer crept up to 19% which was up from 17% during printing and that’s the reason for putting it back in the oven for the last leg of printing the wings.
I think due to the complex shape of the model and the expanded filament at 260C, if I print this again I’d reduce the print speed from the default setting by ~5 - 10% to negotiate the curved areas. I say this as it appears to me the outer most part of the filament is slightly overhanging the curvatures and creating these slight tear drops in the direction of travel.
In summary, I think I’ll try Speed reduction or reducing the filament Wall overlap to say 10% from the default 15%.
If anyone is interested in trying the above changes, please chip in…
This is an expensive filament to play with to find it’s ultimate setup, but being cheeky I’ll ask BBL to sponsor one reel to experiment with…
When I first read the title of this thread I guess my mind didn’t register the “RC” part… I read, “A first for me, Bambu PLA-LW plane”, then I looked at your avatar and saw you sitting in a cockpit. I clicked this so quickly to see the 3D printed plane you had constructed
