Looks like a bad stepper motor.
I would suggest checking by removing the extruded motor and seeing if it still works. If the motor is the same as your x/y motors, you can also swap the e-motor input to one and ensure it’s not something upstream.
(It could also be motor voltage, but that’s far less likely unless you were tweaking things,)
Going to a larger nozzle and kicking it up a bit on temp is going to solve a lot of the problems.
Slowing it down and reducing retraction will also provide some help but not as much.
Side note- use a hardened nozzle (micro Swiss is inexpensive for the occasional abrasive, but they’ll still wear, just slower. Diamond/ruby nozzles won’t wear nearly as much, or, at all but are expensive.) this won’t stop clogging, but it’ll wreck the normal brass nozzles and throw off your flow settings.
The basic concept is easy, the implementation details are not.
Coding a slicer to stagger layer lines is definitely tedious, and frustrating. But in that case, the patent doesn’t patent brick-layering techniques. It patents a specific technique of achieving that.
But when they’re supposed to judge “non-obviousness” it’s a bit more than just “is it simple”. the question is, would somebody else see it as obvious (if they had never looked at your work,). staggered layers are obvious. Anyone with any amount of experience in structural engineering would be like “Well, yeah”.
Now this is where the non-obvious gets fun. If any one whose reasonably knowledgeable in the system would follow the same technique you used. there has to be something “special” about it. And since the patent itself is based on significant past work; the argument could be made that anyone following that past work would arrive at the same techniques should be okay. (Except they’re patent trolls and patent law lobbyists for said trolls have fucked everything over.)
there’s a second caveat here that’s worth mentioning. you can lose your patents if you don’t exploit them. as far as I know there’s no slicer- paid or otherwise- using their patent.
aren’t patents supposed to be “non obvious”?
depending on where in the layer it failed, this could cause more problems. It’ll try to print the layer from the start it may get messing (especially if you’re missing perimeters, or printing over partial-layer perimters.)
The other issue is that homing may be slightly off; that would depend on the printer. (most are okay, but you might find a visible layer shift in the seam,)
this is what i was thinking.
most slicers will let you just move the model down in negative z, saving the need to cut or alter the model. (it then slices only the mesh that’s on or above the plate.)
it really was hilarious watching the cat stubbornly refuse to move out the way as the bed moved back and forth and the hot end poked it. the cat had this most baleful look like it was being martyred by the machine.
(Yes, the friend was careful not to hurt the cat.)
I know a guy whose cat will take naps on it.
Used to have problems with the cat sneaking up while preheating, and being very intent on not getting off. (Even with the cold hot end poking him. It was… hilarious. Took an old i3 and sacrificed the build plate to solve the issue though.)
This is different from carbon fiber filament.
The filament is impregnated with short strands of carbon fiber (aka chopped strand,)
Basically, what you’re doing is using a 3d printed part as a core to shape the carbon fiber- which is a very useful trick- similar to shaping pink insulation foam and skinning that over. (Pink foam is fairly lightweight and very easy to shape- a resistive wire or wire heat gun cuts like butter. Especially useful if you take copper power wire and bend it to form.)
For the record, chopped strand fiber in a fdm printer doesn’t significantly increase strength- especially along layer lines.
It might increase tensile strength of the load is parallel to the layers, but that’s about it. In every other direction, the fiber doesn’t cross layers, and delaminating is the primary failure mode.
The strands would be more like glass fiber than asbestos- you wouldn’t want it in your lungs, but then it shouldn’t really be airborne.
A better option might be graphite filled, which will still get you that look, and help lighten the part without losing strength. Still would not want to sand it without ppe, though.
You’re talking a Bowden extruder?
Micro swiss has a nice dual gear upgrade that can drop in.
It’s very reliable.
Alternatively, if you drop pictures we might be able to help without going to that.
I mean, honestly, it’s commendable.
I’d try IPA for the stuff in the middle. Or something like those blue 3m scrubbies.
Honestly , I just clip the 2-3” off the front and not worry about it. It’s a minuscule amount of plastic
If you’re trying to be ultra frugal, yes, you can probably clean it off with a solvent. IPA might work. Goo gone would but introduces all sorts of other contaminants.
Not to be a stickler, but a dove tail is a sliding joint- the dovetail itself is a trapezoidal section with the narrow side facing the part it’s on.
The slot is similarly cut so it slides into place.
This is (basically) a fat biscuit join, which is good. Peg designs might be better - prefer pyramidal pegs, they self center and have more surface area for glue, and they print neater when they have suboptimal orientation to the print bed.
I would suggest for EVA foam; you could print skeletonized forms in PLA and gluing to that. Yeah, it’d be super slick to be able to just print the stuff, but overall, rigid plastic is awkward and uncomfortable to wear.
You can sandwich the skeleton form between layers. A coarse sanding will get barges to hold every bit as well, too. And the skeleton can offer a more-solid foundation for spikey-things and such, too. And if the form is a difficult shape to print, you can also soften it quite easily with a heat gun and drape it on a form- or, if it’s a sheet use your heat bed set above 70-80 (for pla,). Bad for printing. Great for post processing.
(Also, have you made a vacuum table? You can make a cheap one using that corrugated plastic signboard stuff, and a shop vac. You can also set up a space heater as the heating element using MDF or plywood as a box frame- or a gun. You can make helmets very easily using a vac table and a 3d printed bust that’s the same size as your head.)
The history behind it was that EVA was one of the first thermoplastics developed; at the time things were getting started, people used it because it was available and cheap;
I find the the idea of using it like this to create patches or something interesting, though. I haven’t looked at EVA as a material since highschool. And accessibility to 3d printing is phenomenal to what it used to be. This was around the same time that What-His-Name-Built-Stratasys still had their patent for FFF machines. That printer was so goddam awful… the only reason I’m proud of it is… it actually could turn out vaguely recognizable shapes. (lexmark inkjet, I set it up to move the z axis by moving the bed far enough to hit a switch that dropped it down…) (i built it after I wrote a paper on the things… and felt like maybe I could.)
The entire history of 3d printing as a household thing is fascinating. It parallels computers in some very interesting ways.
He’s definitely not wrong about the issues- there’s a reason it was abandoned almost as fast as it was picked up. EVA on it’s own might not be so bad, but the glue sticks have additives to you, know improve their glue-iness.
edit- for his application where he only really needs a layer, I might almost consider taking a stick or shreddings and a heat gun to melt it onto a bed. a craft knife to cut out the shapes later, but yeah.
You know one of the first filaments was in fact EVA, right?
Its application as a hotmelt glue made it an easy and cheap material to source.
“Worst and cursed” (paraphrasing Stephan there,) there’s a few caveats- it’s best as rods not filament, and large nozzles or it gets messy as hell.
I might have to. Nephew is getting old enough for “real” RC cars. (As apposed to the cheap things.)
My first was an RC-10t, I was seven and that thing still takes names at the track. It can still run over my brothers rc10, too.
Why yes, I’m the younger brother. How did you know?
Might as well just print a new car.
(“You wouldn’t download a new car, would you?”…. Yes.yes I would.)
I might be tempted to try turning on ‘fuzzy skin’ printing above a layer height, for Prusaslicer, if you have a fairly large gap and wide skin thickness it can create an almost-open-weave to it. I used that for some grow baskets for aeroponic racks as well as a lamp shade. The trick there is to print in spiral mode as well.
but I think given the bottom profile, it would have to be done in separate parts- a cylinder for the actual filter, and a cap on either end. ( you can also turn on a skirt for adhesion, which is also useful as a flange for securing it into a cap. basically, there’s a recess that it fits in, then a threaded ring screws into that recess.)
edit: here’s a screen grab of a quick mock up in prusa… using a calibration cube (20x20x50mm) using a layer height change to turn off perimeters, infill and turn on fuzzy skin with a point-distance of .6 and a tickness of 1mm. (default .4mm nozzle. yes, that makes a difference on the skin.) It creates a realtively ‘open’ structure where the layers intersect somewhat randomly while jogging back and forth (think of it as being like a wicker basket,)
it’s important to remember when replicating things that they don’t have to be necessarily exactly what your replacing. really it just needs to fit in the same space and do the same job.