Hi everyone!!! Okay so I have done a few long-ish print like 12-15 hour prints but I’m about to do a 30ish hour print and I’m super nervous and wanted to reach out for any advice or maybe a better way to do this print??? It’s for my Saltwater coral tank and might be one of the items I sell but again I’m nervous… these are 6 inches tall with an 85% infill (can’t be lower than that or it’ll float) and I just wanted a little design flare so I added a helix 
from tinkercad in the middle and painted the center brackets so they’re the same color as the tower (not sure if that’s the right move or not). I have the A1 and I have it printing with the stock .20mm settings… I’m not sure if maybe the layers should be smaller due to the details or anything I’m still only a month or two into my 3d printing journey.
Seems legit, good luck! Multiple colors on every layer makes it spend a lot of time purging and changing, but I bet this’ll look good IRL.
Add glue if you have it. I always glue anything over 24hrs and I think you should too, super cheap insurance policy from a common failure mode. Damp towel wipes it off the models bottom at the end.
If you dont have a good low acceleration profile, you might consider running it on silent mode [-50% speeds] so the tops dont wobble from the plate shaking. On that same wobble topic, “first layer expansion” of the support will give those supports wider brims too to hold on.
a more advanced approach would be to seperate the helix and the tower, print each, fit them, bnlah blah blah but you have flared ends on top and bottom that would complicate it, this is fine
Why would you print all 4 at once, instead of just one at a time, to reduce risk of an absolute disaster occuring at hour 25?
Splitting a 30 hour print into 4 gives a very manageable time per item, and if theres a random failure, you only lose 1 instead of all 4
Smartass comment: 1 day 16 hours is 40 hours, not 30.
Hit it and go. 95 percent chance everything turns out just fine. I do not see anything that strikes me as a problem in the preview.
I might put a brim on there just for the fun of it. Another cheap insurance policy.
But you also increase the number of filament changes by 4.
because if you printed one at a time, to get 4 of them, you’d purge almost an entire kilo. and spend about 3x the time.
That is a fair point RE the filament changes and waste.
I guess I just don’t trust my power grid enough to risk losing everything at hour 29 to a power flicker and having the machine sit inactive for an indeterminate amount of time until I can tend to it.
I’ve lost enough of my longer (~14 hour prints) due to circumstances outside of my control with my printer that I personally would accept the longer print times and increased waste. But you are right, that’s an individual judgement call.
Hahaha yea my math ain’t mathin today my bad lol
As far as brims go I’m having some trouble with them and trying to figure out setting so I don’t have to razor them off. I get that the distance is what I need to change but I’ve tried a couple and it hasn’t seemed to change them, any advice?
Since, as we all know, the A1 doesn’t have a housing, windows and doors are your enemy. At least when it’s significantly colder outside than inside.
I also notice that the pillars are distributed fairly evenly. Try moving them a little toward the center. The print bed maintains the temperature better in the center. Also, I would try to align it with the toolhead axis rather than the printer plate axis, due to movement and vibrations. So, from left to right.
As far as possible, of course, that won’t work in a straight line - but at least align the pillars a little.
Re: brim removal, look into a deburring tool. Cheap angled blade, makes it easy to remove and really hard to cut yourself.
Thanks, just ordered one!
I still use a utility knife out of habit despite owning a deburring tool.
Dont be like me. Save your fingers.
Believe a missing word meant you’re using 85% infill to prevent floating. Consider adding a hollow to the center and loading it with stainless steel beads or shot or glass beads.
(I did this for a statue print I made as a gift. It was top heavy so I added a hollow and shot.)
You may need to do some math to figure out how much you need. And do use stainless, or glass beads, or other non-reactive metal, because water will eventually seep through the print and you don’t want lead or other alloying materials to leach out.
I appreciate the thought but I won’t make anything for my tank with metal in cause I don’t trust my printing abilities. Any exposed metal in a saltwater tank is beyond bad news bears. Maybe once I’m more experienced at printing I’ll try but for now it’s filament waste central for me lol
You have plenty of responses to set your mind at rest.
This is about one single point.
You say you are using 85% infill so it sinks.
You could consider making the central portion hollow, add a pause mid print and throw in some heavy screws, nails or anything else heavy and cheap, resume the print.
The print is faster, uses less material and you could always hide incriminating material from a recent murder in the process.
Just a thought.
I missed the saltwater detail, that does change things. Glass is likely fine though, right?
Or the bodies of your enemies. @MalcTheOracle always has the best advice.
Hahahaha bodies of my enemies lol love it lol
Glass?? Like glass rocks? That’s a thought
A few thoughts come to mind:
- The helix leads to a small unsupported overhang at almost every layer. You may want to give that a test print first. It may be desireable to have it supported.
- It depends very much on your material selection. With PLA, I would not worry too much. With PETG, I’d expect a learning curve (risk of curling, tree detachment).
- Set 2 walls for the support trees. They are pretty high before reaching the model.
- Consider a dissimilar material for the support interface.
& 
At 85% infill, I’d expect a print failure. The shrinkage thru cooling between 1st layer & last layer 41 hours later … good luck. Guessing 60mm diameter base with 180mm height? Printing 4 wirhout printing 1 test run is quite ambitous. Hollow center, 15% fill & weighted is my advice. Further advanced printing practice would include bottom, screw in plug & small vent holes at top. Fill column with sand, screw on the plug and place in water. More than 1 vent hole or slots allow water in/air out. Place in tank, turned to hide holes/slots if desired. Doubtful anyone would recognize the holes anyways: too busy looking at interesting things than looking for holes especially since uniformity means the holes should be there. Custom threads are easy, but that’s a CAD design question.
I could try some of those ideas… I don’t know how to do threaded things yet but hollow with holes might work….
The flooded model suggested earlier might work well. Gyroid infill allows air (or water) to move freely through it (though you may need to knock free bubbles as you submerge it). Assuming the filament is denser than your salt water it should just settle to the bottom. Though I’d still suggest weighting the bottom for stability. Sand or rock, same as your tank probably already has, ought to work fine (and probably cheaper than my original suggestion of steel shot).