What you've learned about your Makerbot Replicator2

[Qbot2640]

Originally Posted by safiq10

has anyone have had any expirence in using non-Makerbot filament?

I got a spool of filament from Inventables using the $25.00 PDV and it works just like the Makerbot stuff. Our team's color is bright pink and Makerbot doesn't have it in PLA.

Will definitely buy more filament from Inventables...it's a few dollars cheaper and they have tons of colors.

[IVAN]

enguneers could you post some links to them ?

[yash101]

This is off topic, but not worth making a new thread about.
Has any team tried 3D printing a 3D printer? . That'd be cool
I think the replicator has the precision required for such a complex print!

[EricH]

Originally Posted by yash101

This is off topic, but not worth making a new thread about.
Has any team tried 3D printing a 3D printer? . That'd be cool
I think the replicator has the precision required for such a complex print!

330 has, with some success. Go take a look at the RepRap project--the basic premise there is that if you have one, you can build one more with that one, some items from the local hardware store, and a few electronics items.

At last count, 330 had printed something like 3-4 printers worth of parts. I would know: I spent part of a summer keeping an eye on the first two we had while they printed the rest.

[kprzewodek]

Originally Posted by engunneer

I've had a makerbot cupcake for a little over 3 years now, and have printed quite a few parts for home and FRC use.

As stated above, closing the chamber helps significantly, especially as seasons change. If your printer is near a window or in a small office, the thermal gradients are pretty bad. I have a single sheet of paper taped over openings to keep the platform and extruder heat in. Especially in ABS, this reduces warping

I haven't used rafts in a long time, but support material is still useful on particularly hard prints. The type of support material and ease of removal depends highly on your model slicer.

For slicers, I ran Skeinforge in RepG for a long time, but now I use slic3r. I've been meaning to try Cura. Both are capable of replicator and sailfish compatible gcode. The main things I like about slic3r are:

• Place and arrange multiple parts on the print bed
• way faster slicing than Skeinforge, even on my laptop from 2006
• separate profiles for slicing, filament, and printers

I have a profile for "Strong" which is 4 perimeters, and 40% infill (agree that going above 40% is rarely useful), "Normal" (3 perimeters, 20% infill) and "Fast" (2 perimeters, 10% infill).

Inputting your filament diameter is critical, and also your extruder steps per mm. without these you will get too much or too little plastic, which can be fatal on the field. You should be able to print a 100% solid cube and have it come out full and flat.

My latest upgrade has been a Raspberry Pi to run my printer - see my blog post on this topic. I have since gotten the wifi configured and have a wireless printer. When I bring it to the school, I switch back to a wired connection.

For print setup, I use:
ABS: 220C extruder, 120C bed, lightly snaded Kapton tape (I have a 4" wide roll) with a layer of Aqua Net (hair spray) for difficult parts.
PLA: 180C extruder, 60C bed, Blue painters tape (3" roll, as above) again with Aqua Net for smaller parts.

If a part is being hard to remove, especially ABS, I just let the bed cool to room temperature, and it pops right off.

ABS parts that need more strength can be put in a warm acetone vapor bath for between 1-60 minutes depending on how much smoothing you want. This glues all the layers together. Let me know if you want to try this, and need more info.

I've had nothing but trouble with ABS adhering to the Kapton tape. Maybe the key is to sand it but I ended up using painters tape, as with PLA, and it has worked so far. I did notice that the older style painters tape seems to work better. The new improved version seems to have a coating or texture that doesn't provide as much grip and my parts pick up.

Also, I would be interested in exploring what you say about acetone vapor bath. That's an interesting way to uniformly bond layers.

[Peregrine]

Our team, 3324 has been working with the replicator 2x for a little over a year now. It has become a major part of our workflow moving from CAD design to aluminum manufactured parts. We're even using our machine to create custom wheel spacers some other actual robot parts.

We almost exclusively print in ABS for the strength upgrade. Early on we had some issues with warping but we've mostly solved it all with a combination of frequent and precise plate leveling, increasing bed temperature slightly and applying an acetone/ABS slush mixture onto the plate before each print.

We've started sourcing our ABS from IC3D - it's a local (to us) company creating high quality filament for cheaper than I can find anywhere.

http://www.amazon.com/IC3D-1-75mm-Pr...&keywords=ic3d

http://www.ic3dprinters.com/

[kprzewodek]

I've heard of this slurry technique but have yet to try it.

Other than a few issues keeping a part bonded to the surface (or slight warp up) I have had much more success printing in ABS than PLA...and it's so much easier to remove support structures. I'm glad I spent the extra money for the 2x because it's so nice to have the option of printing with either.

Here's another source for filament http://www.hobbypartz.com/3dprfi.html. Haven't ordered from them yet but the price seems right. I will try this the next time around. I've heard many stories that the cheaper stuff tends to vary in thickness which causes extrusion issues. Buyer beware as you try new sources.

[cadandcookies]

We recently bought an aluminum build plate (due to warping of the acrylic one), and have been very satisfied. We got ours from this guy on ebay, and it has been working marvelously. It's significantly heavier, but is also, as advertised, super flat.

[SenorZ]

DonorsChoose.org just opened up the MakerBot deal in California. And we got one (I think). Can't wait to use all this advice.