Anycubic Photon and Mono X 3D DLP Printers

[beingamonkey]

1 hour ago, Quarryscapes said:

 

Yes, totally normal, but also incredibly annoying. 

thanks, annoying but reassuring

[Royal42]

Anycubic stock is sent to distribution centres from China.  The centre for the UK is based in Germany and it will depend if they have all the items in stock.  It sounds like they were out of stock on your last item; therefore, waiting resupply from China.  This happened to me when I bought mine, yours will arrive eventually.

 

Mike

[JCL]

On 17/04/2021 at 13:38, beingamonkey said:

Hi, new to this thread, it's been really helpful and convinced me to take the plunge and buy a photon. 

I ordered a Photon Mono a few days ago with a Wash & Cure Machine 2.0 & 1kg of resin, but so far only the Photon Mono  and 1kg of resin has arrived (by separate carriers), is this normal for these to all be sent separately?

 

I've sent a message to AnyCubic, hopefully my Wash & Cure Machine 2.0 is still on its way.

Just wondering if anyone had any similar experiences.

 

Nic

 

If it helps, I didn't receive the shipping notice until the day after my W&C arrived. I have to say that I'm enjoying using it.

[Paul_sterling]

Hi Folks, 

 

I've been working with the Photon S's for just over a year now. Both have been pretty good, though my personal one has had the lions share of the work. It started to throw up issues in the last month when printing new files. If you printed the same file over and over again it was fine, but changes sent it haywire. I had a new screen, but changing that meant it didn't work at all, Anycubic advised that the motherboard is defective. I've ordered a new motherboard from them, but in the meantime ordered a Photon Mono, which I powered up for the first time this morning. I needed extra printer capacity for producing the lambton tanks, and NCB Meteor, in addition to other forthcoming projects. 

 

I've attached a few pics of the current project, which is Meteor, ex NCB RSH tank locomotive. This fits on a cut down Hornby Austerity Chassis, with the new printer I'm just about to go into production with these, in addition to LH&JC No.5, which I've been doing for much of this year. 

[drduncan]

Any suggestions what is going on here? You can see lines perpendicular to the planking that aren’t on the STL or prints from any other make of printer. The print was done on a Mono was at an angle of 45 deg using elegoo black water washable; 0.051 layer depth.

 

Thanks in advance.

Duncan

[MikeTrice]

Very strange. No obvious explanation but in the absence of any other suggestions I wonder if there is a slicing error. Are you able to open the sliced file to check the individual layers for signs of the issue?

[monkeysarefun]

The regularity seems strange. You say no other printer had this effect- was this sliced with a different slicer to the others? If so there may be an issue with the stl such as an open face, internal edges, hole in the mesh  or similar that this particular slicer doesn't like.

 

As Mike suggested, open the stl and go through it layer by later. Chitubox can do that and I recall Anycubic had a file validator that did the same thing, I haven't used Anycubic for 12 months now though so maybe there's an updated method.

[billbedford]

It looks to me like there is a problem in the CAD, rather than anything downstream. 

[Quarryscapes]

Angle is wrong for slice thickness I'd say. Try a different angle and you should get a different line spacing (or none at all). 45 degrees should work where the layer height matches exactly the pixel pitch, so if that is set wrong somewhere in the slicer then that could also be the culprit. 

[JCL]

Also, try rotating it 10+ degrees on the Z axis and see what happens.

[MikeTrice]

On 25/04/2021 at 23:07, monkeysarefun said:

As Mike suggested, open the stl and go through it layer by later. Chitubox can do that and I recall Anycubic had a file validator that did the same thing, I haven't used Anycubic for 12 months now though so maybe there's an updated method.

 

Not quite what I said. You need to open the sliced file rather than the source stl. Chitubox, Photon Workshop and UVTools can all be used to do this. THis will show whether the artifacts are caused by the slicer. It might be worth turning off any anti-aliasing/blur settings if used as some slicers are currently having trouble with them.

 

On 26/04/2021 at 07:55, billbedford said:

It looks to me like there is a problem in the CAD, rather than anything downstream. 

 

Given the stl slices and prints correctly on other printers why would the problem be in the CAD?

 

21 hours ago, Quarryscapes said:

Angle is wrong for slice thickness I'd say. Try a different angle and you should get a different line spacing (or none at all). 45 degrees should work where the layer height matches exactly the pixel pitch, so if that is set wrong somewhere in the slicer then that could also be the culprit. 

 

Duncan mentions in his query the fact he already printed at 45 degrees. 0.051 layer height sounds odd and might suggest using 0.05. Personally I often print with 0.04mm layer height.

 

It is also worth checking to see if there is a later version of the firmware available for the printer as some of the Anycubic ones still have bugs.

 

6 hours ago, JCL said:

Also, try rotating it 10+ degrees on the Z axis and see what happens.

 

It would not harm to try this it there is room on the build plate.

[monkeysarefun]

16 minutes ago, MikeTrice said:

Not quite what I said. You need to open the sliced file rather than the source stl. Chitubox, Photon Workshop and UVTools can all be used to do this.

Yeah, my mistake saying STL when I meant the sliced file, hence suggesting the use of chitubox or the photon validator to go through layer by layer.

  Stoopid brain.

[billbedford]

42 minutes ago, MikeTrice said:

Given the stl slices and prints correctly on other printers why would the problem be in the CAD?

Because if the problem was with the printer or the slicer, the faults would be parallel or orthogonal to the supports. Here the faults are parallel to the ends of the model. 

[Quarryscapes]

Mono X pixel pitch is 0.050, Mono is 0.051. Change to 0.05 layer height at 45 degrees and it will be fine. Here is what's going on illustrated with a line. On the left 0.051 hieght vs 0.050 pixel pitch, on the right both are 0.050. 

[drduncan]

On 26/04/2021 at 07:55, billbedford said:

It looks to me like there is a problem in the CAD, rather than anything downstream. 

I’ve looked at the source file in Fusion and the perpendicular lines are not seen.

D

[drduncan]

7 hours ago, Quarryscapes said:

Mono X pixel pitch is 0.050, Mono is 0.051. Change to 0.05 layer height at 45 degrees and it will be fine. Here is what's going on illustrated with a line. On the left 0.051 hieght vs 0.050 pixel pitch, on the right both are 0.050. 

Thanks I’ll adjust the layer and try.

D

[drduncan]

10 hours ago, MikeTrice said:

 

Not quite what I said. You need to open the sliced file rather than the source stl. Chitubox, Photon Workshop and UVTools can all be used to do this. THis will show whether the artifacts are caused by the slicer. It might be worth turning off any anti-aliasing/blur settings if used as some slicers are currently having trouble with them.

 

 

Given the stl slices and prints correctly on other printers why would the problem be in the CAD?

 

 

Duncan mentions in his query the fact he already printed at 45 degrees. 0.051 layer height sounds odd and might suggest using 0.05. Personally I often print with 0.04mm layer height.

 

It is also worth checking to see if there is a later version of the firmware available for the printer as some of the Anycubic ones still have bugs.

 

 

It would not harm to try this it there is room on the build plate.

I shall look at the firmware and try the z rotation too.

D

[MikeTrice]

You may find that just reslicing it solves the issue but the other aspects are worth checking as they don't take long compared to a failed print.

 

Good luck and we hope to hear of any progress.

[Quarryscapes]

Here's an odd one...Dome for my FR Prince project. When printed flat on the plate the last few layers have holes in. When printed on supports they do not, but the cylindrical accuracy is compromised and it is no longer a tight fit in the tank. When it frst happened I blamed a bit of dust on the screen, but as these have all been printed in different places on the platform, across 4 weeks, I'm pretty sure that isn't it! 

 

 

Top row were printed at the same time, left flat on the plate, right on supports. 50 micron layers. 

Bottom Row wer printed this morning after some more tweaks to the CAD, both flat on bed, left at 50micron, right at 35 micron.

 

As you can see, all but the supported one have a little hole somewhere near the apex. Not a big deal, It can be filled easily enough, but it is curious. 

 

 

[drduncan]

On 27/04/2021 at 21:41, MikeTrice said:

You may find that just reslicing it solves the issue but the other aspects are worth checking as they don't take long compared to a failed print.

 

Good luck and we hope to hear of any progress.

The progress is that photon workshop keeps crashing! I intend doing and uninstall re-install. Also I couldn’t find the file validator so I’d appreciate it  if anyone could provide the file path to help me locate it in the app.

 

Regards
 

Duncan

[MikeTrice]

5 minutes ago, drduncan said:

The progress is that photon workshop keeps crashing! I intend doing and uninstall re-install. Also I couldn’t find the file validator so I’d appreciate it  if anyone could provide the file path to help me locate it in the app.

 

Regards
 

Duncan

A lot of people have problems with photon workshop and don't think a lot of it. Personally I use Chitubox v1.8.1. Chitubox includes some validation capability but UV Tools is worth getting being free.

[flubrush]

Have you checked the slicer files for the ones printed on the plate to see if there is a "hole" in the files near the top.  You can single step through the files on the Chitubox slicer to check things out.   I've had the occasional "funny" on Chitubox when a slice doesn't represent what it should which I have got rid of by doing something like rotating the part a degree or two.    In your case,  raising the part on supports might be changing things to get rid of the blemish.

 

Jim.

[MikeTrice]

1 hour ago, Quarryscapes said:

Here's an odd one...Dome for my FR Prince project. When printed flat on the plate the last few layers have holes in. When printed on supports they do not, but the cylindrical accuracy is compromised and it is no longer a tight fit in the tank. When it frst happened I blamed a bit of dust on the screen, but as these have all been printed in different places on the platform, across 4 weeks, I'm pretty sure that isn't it! 

 

 

Top row were printed at the same time, left flat on the plate, right on supports. 50 micron layers. 

Bottom Row wer printed this morning after some more tweaks to the CAD, both flat on bed, left at 50micron, right at 35 micron.

 

As you can see, all but the supported one have a little hole somewhere near the apex. Not a big deal, It can be filled easily enough, but it is curious. 

 

 

I would expect the layer lines to be circular which they are not which suggests none are cylindrical. No idea regarding the hole.

[JCL]

Something else that's interesting is that the circular layer-lines aren't circular near the middle for any of the parts. When I did Mike's ball test, the layer-lines in his model were perfectly circular.

 

Have you tried reducing the build plate's lift speed and/or recreating the part to see if there's a problem with the mesh?

[Quarryscapes]

They won't be circular because it's not a hemishpere, the curvature X-Z is different to Y-Z, as the edge needs to stay the same distance from the saddle tank. If it was to remain hemispherical, then the plan view would be eliptical. 

 

It's definitely not in the mesh, nor is it in the slices. I wonder if it's small imperfections in the FEP causing the last fragile layers to get mis-shaped?