3D printing...

[JohnnyC]

Apologies to all if this has already been covered. . .

Has anyone printed a cap for a COOTWO with a hole for an inflator nozzle? I know the DiveNav guys sell these, but their price seems excessively high

You could print one, but they have a flow limiter in them. Putting a straight LP inflator stem isn't going to work out well.

 

[JohnN]

I failed to mention, I have an old-school OMS limiter (with the little ball) I was going to use

 

[The Chairman]

It was an awesome looking print until I popped it off. It's sticking a bit too well and tore in half. It was incredibly hollow for a tool, so back to the slicer to see how I can tweak it a bit better. I'm slowly getting to know this Cura Slicer software. Most everyone I know is printing PLA @210C. Mine is set to 200C. Easy enough to set on the fly, but I want it in the slicing instructions. As I was looking for it, I found an almost hidden value, suggesting that this was the "draft" version. That explains the coarseness. Setting it to normal puts the layer to 0.15mm instead of 0.2mm and slows it down a bit. I went from the progressive fill to %80. I found the temp setting and put the extruder end to 210C and the heated bed to 80C. That adds a half hour to the print process, but that's OK. She's cranking away now.

Looks great on the outside.​

 

[The Chairman]

Yesterday was all pain, it seemed. Yeah, I had a small victory, but it was frustrating to get there. I was worried that each and every print would be this problematic. I'm learning new skills, a new language (gcode), starting to hone my 3d printing acumen and learning new software (Cura). Yesterday it seemed insurmountable, but today has gone pretty well. It appears I've conquered bed leveling, adhesion and even some print quality issues. I had one failure, but I learned so much from that incident. I'm sure I'll be printing for the printer for the next day or so, but that's OK. It's good solid progress and the printing looks rock solid. I reprinted the strain relief, and while it looks pretty much the same, it is rock solid. There was still great adhesion and I had to use the included scraper to remove it from the bed. I think most of the Aquanet is gone, but I don't appear to need it. I do want to create a riser so I can reach under the bed with ease when I level it.

Printing Bed leveling knobs.​

 

[emoreira]

Yesterday was all pain, it seemed. Yeah, I had a small victory, but it was frustrating to get there. I was worried that each and every print would be this problematic. I'm learning new skills, a new language (gcode), starting to hone my 3d printing acumen and learning new software (Cura). Yesterday it seemed insurmountable, but today has gone pretty well. It appears I've conquered bed leveling, adhesion and even some print quality issues. I had one failure, but I learned so much from that incident. I'm sure I'll be printing for the printer for the next day or so, but that's OK. It's good solid progress and the printing looks rock solid. I reprinted the strain relief, and while it looks pretty much the same, it is rock solid. There was still great adhesion and I had to use the included scraper to remove it from the bed. I think most of the Aquanet is gone, but I don't appear to need it. I do want to create a riser so I can reach under the bed with ease when I level it.

View attachment 514486

Printing Bed leveling knobs.​

This also happend to me. It took me several prints and many feet of filament to learn to level the build plate, teak the temperatures, and those tens of parameters in Cura. In the beginning it's frustrating, but with time and errors, you learn finally.

 

[James79]

Additionally, make sure to print a calibration cube and calibrate the firmware (this makes sure the number of steps for a given distance is correct, helping with dimensional accuracy)

 

[The Chairman]

The cube is high on the list now that printing appears stable. I did stop the print on the bed leveling knobs. The z-axis somehow got on top of the controller box. When I lifted it off, I heard the nozzle start to hit the plastic, so I stopped the print before I broke something. I re-leveled the bed (can't wait for those knobs), cleaned off the failed print (boy did they look good) and restarted it all. Surprisingly enough, I wasn't at all frustrated through the process. The cause of the failure was quite clear and easily corrected. I'm going to build a riser for this printer. It would be far easier if it were a foot higher and I had unfettered access to the bed leveling knobs. No, I'm not going to try and 3D print it. I have lots of tools and there are better ones for that job.

 

[The Chairman]

I need to do an extruder test in addition to the cube. Maybe I'll wait for the riser when she's in her permanent place?

 

[Trivan]

I’m in week 1 of my first printer as well. I went with an Ender 3. If you can, load the firmware which give you Mesh Leveling. You can do it automatically via a probe you attach or manually. I did it manually and it made a big difference. You level 25 points on the bed and it adjusts the print along the way for the variances of the print bed.

 

[JohnnyC]

Shell number provides strength, infill provides rigidity. If a part needs to be stronger, increase the number of shells (solid outer layers). If the part needs to be rigid, increase the infill density.

Not sure why you're having to re-level so often. Unless you're torquing it all over the place getting prints off. But a thin spackle knife. They work great for coaxing parts off the print bed.

Print the calibration cube ASAP. Otherwise you're starting from an unknown.