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Hi there, I’ve a different brand that uses a laser. Because it’s a laser, problem that I have is calibration. On the Mars and Saturn is it basically the case that given a good supporting structure, the model is that same size as the drawing?

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Does it need to be a laptop?

 

Desktops are usually cheaper, much more upgradeable and have higher performance.

 

The main things to do would be to stuff as much ram in as you can and fit a SSD. My old (second) pc is only a Pentium g3220 from 7 years ago with 8gb ram and a 500gb ssd, but it runs very fast. Then again I'm using rhino3d which I prefer to fusion, and which runs faster in my experience.

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13 hours ago, brack said:

Does it need to be a laptop?

 

Desktops are usually cheaper, much more upgradeable and have higher performance.

 

The main things to do would be to stuff as much ram in as you can and fit a SSD. My old (second) pc is only a Pentium g3220 from 7 years ago with 8gb ram and a 500gb ssd, but it runs very fast. Then again I'm using rhino3d which I prefer to fusion, and which runs faster in my experience.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, I did consider a standalone PC but having something to use in different rooms in the house would be more sociable and was able to use an employee eCard to get a discount on a Dell laptop.

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Back to the subject at hand - this is the 1st loco print (which is a bit twisted in places so needs more support). However I gave it a waft of primer to see how it'd come up.

 

The nuts on the valve chests are quite tricky to discern in real life - but zoomed in you can see they've come out very well - hex nuts and the studs poking out the top.the rivets look excellent in the primer too. Theres a bit of layering visible, but it's better quality than shapeways produce. I suspect halfords yellow filler primer might be enough to hide the layering.IMG-20200629-WA0001.jpg.42ef3afd74ec826f4e3a24279a4ce0a9.jpg

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
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The Mars is currently on sale on amazon at £190 too. Bargain. 
 

Only a handful of the original batch of Saturns have shipped, no have made it to Europe yet. Whilst the ‘normal’ ones will clearly have established distribution channels through Amazon I’m not sure it’ll be that soon. They’ve had issues with damage allegedly caused in shipping too. 

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I have read elsewhere that some of those first shipped had damage to the edge of the build plate, because of poorly designed packaging.  the remainder will have different packaging, which means the shipping dates have slipped.  so Elegoo are giving away a $30 voucher to  those affected to use in there Amazon store.  Mine is due in the 2nd Pre-order wave.  I imagine that these will be pushed back too, unless they can catch up somehow.

Regards,

 

Neil

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  • 3 weeks later...

For those who got in on the first 2 rounds of Saturn pre-orders, you can check your order progress here..

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PIMIHCHBcE7vzEiw1yIfBTwI6cs0RFD6r2RHXhL27UU/edit?fbclid=IwAR29j_bHW7FIvHWAfCEwEttigwZnpP32qrnXnBywrALCbSVFaI9eVaebY-M#gid=0

Edited by monkeysarefun
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On 14/08/2020 at 19:44, JCL said:

This UK reseller might be of interest to some.

 

https://www.3dprintmonkey.co.uk/ 

 

And I enjoyed watching this video about the Saturn 

 

 

 

This is a great video - and full of really helpful tips for slicing and designing supports etc. So much better, and more entertaining, than most printer "reviews"!

 

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  • 2 months later...
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Cool! I’m fairly lukewarm on mine. It’s good, but it’s slower than the Mars due to the lift/retract speeds needing to be so slow due to the large peel forces, despite 3s layer timed. I’ve yet to print anything so big I couldn’t have just done it on the Mars! Sure the time will come...

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Interesting - I have been reading up on the lift speed issues, not something I've had to think about on the smaller printers.

 

 I'm planning on printing some 4mm  buildings I've made in sketchup.

 

Even the smallest one was 10mm to large to fit on the other printers so  the speed isn't as important to me as much as being able to print walls in one piece.

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46 minutes ago, FoxUnpopuli said:

Not jealous at all.  However, not getting one in the initial rush has given me the opportunity to look at the Photon Mono X.  Don't know if it's slightly taller Z gives it a practical advantage.  Definitely looks like a nice piece.

 

Yeah, I think its an extra 45mm or so in the Z over the Saturn?  Every mm is good.

 

Its a bit of an arms race at the moment in the resin printer world, stand by for it to go mad when the Elegoo Jupiter comes out! (Thats a Mars beside it for comparison!)

image.png.f5461590192ce26fd442031cfc1c49b7.pngimage.png.f5461590192ce26fd442031cfc1c49b7.png

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Please excuse me for jumping in here rather than starting a new thread. 
 

I’ve thought about a printer since I nearly backed the Form 1 on Kickstarter. Last week I saw the Mars Pro 2 on Amazon was in stock and clicked buy. The rook printed great but getting it off the build plate was a mission. I followed up with a print of something of my own design using the default settings in Chitubox and flat to the build plate. This came away a little more easily but I had left it in the printer draining/dripping for a couple of hours after the print ended and there was a globular setting all around the first 1mm or so of height within the part plus a cured film of resin of variable thickness all across the build plate. I couldn’t scrape this off and resorted to gently sanding it away with medium grit paper. I’m using elegoo standard grey resin. 
 

I think I found an answer to my first problem in a flexible build plate. Internet searching led me to Wham Bam who just brought out a size for the 2P. For peace of mind I decided the build plate ought to be levelled for every print given the force required to remove prints and that means removing the resin vat (maybe with resin in if this is a follow on print). With a flexible build plate it should mean the build plate does not require regular levelling, even though it’s not difficult. 
 

I could not find any information on the build plate resin issue. I assumed it would be okay left for a while to drain if the lid was left on. Should I be cleaning up right away after a print? I’m hoping I haven’t destroyed the build plate by sanding it but couldn’t find any other way. I’ve not  tried printing anything more yet. 

Edited by richbrummitt
typo
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21 minutes ago, richbrummitt said:

Please excuse me for jumping in here rather than starting a new thread. 
 

I’ve thought about a printer since I nearly backed the Form 1 on Kickstarter. Last week I saw the Mars Pro 2 on Amazon was in stock and clicked buy. The rook printed great but getting it off the build plate was a mission. I followed up with a print of something of my own design using the default settings in Chitubox and flat to the build plate. This came away a little more easily but I had left it in the printer draining/dripping for a couple of hours after the print ended and there was a globular setting all around the first 1mm or so of height within the part plus a cured film of resin of variable thickness all across the build plate. I couldn’t scrape this off and resorted to gently sanding it away with medium grit paper. I’m using elegoo standard grey resin. 
 

I think I found an answer to my first problem in a flexible build plate. Internet searching led me to Wham Bam who just brought out a size for the 2P. For peace of mind I decided the build plate ought to be levelled for every print given the force required to remove prints and that means removing the resin vat (maybe with resin in if this is a follow on print). With a flexible build plate it should mean the build plate does not require regular levelling, even though it’s not difficult. 
 

I could not find any information on the build plate resin issue. I assumed it would be okay left for a while to drain if the lid was left on. Should I be cleaning up right away after a print? I’m hoping I haven’t destroyed the build plate by sanding it but couldn’t find any other way. I’ve not  tried printing anything more yet. 

 

it shouldn't take much effort to remove a print using the plastic spatula/scraper that comes with the printer, if it's really difficult reduce the exposure time for the bottom layers (its a balancing act between good adhesion to minimise print failures and ease of removal, someone online can likely give you some ballpark figures for the mars pro 2), in the slicer software I'd recommend using a raft with angled sides so that your spatula  can slide under more easily as well. 

 

I've never had an issue with resin curing on the build plate where it wasn't supposed to , my assumption would be that there might be an issue with your sliced files, load the sliced file into chitubox and you should be able to scroll through the layers to see if any with areas that were 'on' when they should have been 'off'. Again its an issue I've never had but I've heard it does happen. Otherwise it could be an issue with the resin (I also use elegoo standard grey resin normally and have never had such an issue and the grey is pretty forgiving) or the printer, run some more prints and see if the issue repeats itself.

 

I wouldn't have sanded the build plate but it was a known 'hack' with anycubic photons to improve adhesion, if you were gentle and have cleaned it thoroughly afterward is should be OK, if not buy a spare. Personally I would have left it in IPA (as you would a print but for much longer) to clean it and see if that loosened anything stubborn, it normally does if somethings gets stuck to the FEP film.

 

With the lid on I've left prints hanging for a couple of days without issue, I normally print very regularly so rarely clean the print bed as it's only got resin on it and is just going to go back into the resin anyway so if nothings stuck to it why bother. Same story for leveling the bed, I think I've done it 3 times on each of my mars printers in the last 6 months.

 

I've never tried one of the flexi build plates so can't comment on those other than to say that I don't find a need for one. I've got a pair of Mars Pros not the Pro 2 but it should all be much the same

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This is the print with the issue

 

366B056D-3A00-4C5D-9C03-8109ABDC8034.jpeg.41e168a0f5acd82337aeea03831a172f.jpeg

 

They’re 2mm milk churns. 
 

This is how the geometry should look, though this is a bit scruffy too because it’s off an FDM and the resolution does not really support the size. 

 

83C237C1-022B-4221-A6F5-739A5149768B.thumb.jpeg.86c03cd8d84af8d68aff9064f2538d6a.jpeg
 

The slice file looks fine with only a few layers at the bottom being rectangle shaped (as they should be to tie the whole load together)
 

Edited by richbrummitt
posted too soon.
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8 hours ago, richbrummitt said:

This is the print with the issue

 

366B056D-3A00-4C5D-9C03-8109ABDC8034.jpeg.41e168a0f5acd82337aeea03831a172f.jpeg

 

They’re 2mm milk churns. 
 

This is how the geometry should look, though this is a bit scruffy too because it’s off an FDM and the resolution does not really support the size. 

 

83C237C1-022B-4221-A6F5-739A5149768B.thumb.jpeg.86c03cd8d84af8d68aff9064f2538d6a.jpeg
 

The slice file looks fine with only a few layers at the bottom being rectangle shaped (as they should be to tie the whole load together)
 

 

 

At a guess I would say that’s over exposure leading to light bleed around the edges of the print partially curing the surrounding resin

 

if it were me I’d work with only a few of those churns on a print to save resin and tune the print settings in your slicer software running prints until you’re happy with the result then re-slice the large print with those settings that worked and see how it goes

 

For reference my pro on 0.03mm layers with elegoo standard resin has 8 bottom layers with a 40s bottom exposure time and 7.3s normal exposure time. I know the light source in the pro 2 is different but I don’t know if that will mean you can print layers faster

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Yeah that’s not right. Unless UV light was getting into the printer once it finished it’ll be fine to sit there and drip. I’ve actually had a print sitting finished in a printer for over a week now. 
 

Items with a large flat surface can be really hard to remove from the build plate, as you say a flex plate should help with that, apparently putting the build plate in the freezer will too. I prefer to just use a razor blade, but I don’t tend to print many things flat on the plate. 
 

The Pro 2 is much faster. That’s more than just the base layers - if you’ve got 8 base layers at 0.05mm the base layers are only 0.4mm of the print. I found the default Chitubox settings too quick for my prints, although the test rooks were fine, and it doesn’t look like that’s the case with yours. You could try shortening exposure times - are they 2 seconds by default? I can’t remember. However, I suspect that’s a problem with lifting height/speed, it looks like resin probably isn’t draining from the gaps between the churns, and is then being cured on the next layer.  
 

I’d probably validate that by spreading them out a bit and printing half a dozen. If that’s the case you can try increasing the density and slowing the lift speed and/or distance, or possibly increasing the light off delay, although that would be my least preferred method. 

Edited by njee20
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