Smooth the surface? Looks like that texture is from your plate? A smooth pei plate will give you a smoother bottom surface. If you want the top even smoother use ironing. Printing with tpu will give anti-slip properties.
The coasters are double sided.
The printer is not mine and they dont have a smooth PEI plate.
I want the same texture on both sides, so im hoping to do some post processing.
If you want an identical texture from the plate on both sides, you could split your model in two laterally and print both finished faces downwards against the plate, and then glue/screw/pin/otherwise attach the two halves together afterwards.
Doing this with an inlay for the two colors would be possible, i.e. with a filament change on the same layer. If your colored bit is a separate layer on top of the other stuff that plan won't be possible.
That could be an option, but ill look into the anti slip pads and i have also found "clear plastidip" online and ill see if i can make a nice coasters surface with that.
I've done a lot of experiments with toner transfer and etching my own boards. The highest accuracy with the smallest clearance I can achieve is with old inkjet photo paper in my old HP laser printer. I have tried several different photo papers. They all act a little differently, but they all take up far more toner powder from the drum roller. I'm not sure why. It can be a pain to get the paper backing off of some of them, but when it comes to etching, it approaches photoresist levels using the typical overhead transparencies.
Just an idea to throw out there. This looks great already.
I'm pretty happy with the transparencies tbh. Although on mine, there seems to be two sides, one that gives a fuzzy dirty effect with a lot of stray toner around the actual print (looks like static), and the other side that gives perfectly crisp prints. Unfortunately I can't really tell the sides apart.
Apart from that small speck of dust that prevented the transfer at the top left of the logo, the sheet came out perfectly clean, the totality of the toner was transferred to the dial. For PCB transfers where you could probably keep the sheet intact (I had to cut mine to fit between the applied indices), that would also mean the sheet would be almost indefinitely reusable.
Be careful with inkjet photo paper in a laser printer. In particular, the glossy paper will typically have a coating that may come off in the laser printer due to the heat and pressure the printer uses, and that can cause issues over time.
Very cool! This is the second time I see the heat-bed used in an 'exotic' way 😄
But what piqued my interest is, what the heck are you doing with watch dials? I know from buying a couple of watches that the dial is always considered a work of art, precision and crispness. What I mean to say is, dials seem to be uber important. And seems very, very difficult to mimic by yourself at home.
Are you trying to create watches and thus need to also create dials? Create new dials for existing watches?
I'm super curious now 😀
I 100% agree with you, a professionally made dial is a work of art and should be absolutely perfect at any magnification. This is just a fun, cheap summer watch project for my own enjoyment ;)
The best looking alternative would have been to have the logo made by electroforming. They look perfect and very professional. Unfortunately the MOQs are usually quite large and therefore expensive, I couldn't justify spending half the price of this project just on a logo (even if I had enough spare logos for several lifetimes).
I just let it run without the resin vat and the RERF default print (with the characters) does actually trigger different exposures.
But yeah, the filename is super important as it triggers a test mode where the plate is exposed at 8 different spots at 8 different times per layer.
I'll need to create my own test file and test it with and without the characters. It's something I can test, but was hoping someone knew off the top of their head. (I was in the middle of my first ever resin print when I banged out this post, actually.)
I'm glad you got something that is meeting your needs so far! Lots of people going the bambu route as of late. If you want a tool that just works, it's a brilliant machine, and if later down the line you do get more interested in the hobby side of things, you'll a. already have basic maintenance and use experience, b. have a bulletproof backup printer when things on your project inevitability hiccup and stop working, and c. be able to print your own parts if you decide to go a self built route.
I have a tendency to get into hobbies for a month or so and then drop them, too, so it being easy to set up and use should help me stick with it a bit more. The relatively low initial investment should soften the blow if I do drop it, too.
Well, they're MSRP'ing for $199 at the moment if you don't spring for the AMS Lite filament changer thingamadoo. To be fair that's less than several pocket knives I own are worth. I'm not a fan of Bambu at all, but I think you could wind up with far worse for not much less money...
Hey, that's a pretty good price. I'm not a fan of bambu either, but for someone who just wants to print stuff I don't think it's a bad deal at all. That's less than my stock Neptune 3 and probably a hell of a lot more reliable
I went with the A1 mini while it was (actually still is) $200 on their website. That's about as much as we spent on our sewing machine gathering dust, a bit more than our vinyl cutter doing the same, and around the same as I've invested so far in mini painting.
To be fair to me, I have so far kept up with the miniature painting.
That's lower than I expected. When I was last shopping for a new potential printer, bambus were starting at around $400. Good piece of hardware for that price, if you're not crazy into the hobby aspect of printing and just need it to aid your other hobbies. Have fun with it!
His videos are great, he recently fell in love with the Bambu bed slingers. His minis are designed for FDM which is something you're going to have to look for.
I actually just found his channel a couple days ago. I haven't looked too much more into him, but his designs look great. Thank you for the recommendation!
Just downloaded all of his sample models and bought another 5 on top of that. I wish that sand worm came with assembly instructions, but he's getting built one way or another.
Yep, you'll never get it perfect, but a smaller layer height will make the steps less noticeable. Adaptive layer height in cura if you use that can help, but adds a mortal age to the length of the print.
Consider post processing steps if you really need smooth parts. Sandable fillers, special paints, epoxy coatings, or just a bunch of sanding. I've had good luck with XTC-3D. It's an epoxy you paint on that's specifically designed for smoothing prints.
You could also consider a resin printer if you need smooth. They are their own can of worms, but the resolution and smoothness is good.
Let the bed cool down all the way, ya little gremlin! If you absolutely can't wait, put the bed on a tile floor and your print should pop off on it's own pretty quick.
If it is a removable bed, pop that bad boy in the freezer for a bit and the print should pop off. If not then you may want to try some glue stick on the bed before a print which will help the print release since it'll pull off the glue.
This is a glass bed on an Ender that I am doing this on. I haven't had any issues with scratching the bed whatsoever. Mild steel is actually softer than glass so it might actually be harder to scratch than you might think. Your mileage may vary though.
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