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Adding Aluminum Arm Stiffeners to Replicator 2
19 Oct2014
Time for another upgrade to our MakerBot Replicator 2 3D printer, this time we have decided to install aluminum arm stiffeners in order to help eliminate sagging of the build plate and reduce the lateral build plate vibration and movement during printing. The upgrade parts we are installing are the Aluminum Arm Stiffeners from Performance 3-d. The installation kit we got is designed to fit multiple 3D printers and it includes pretty much all things to mount it including screws and a drilling tool that is partly 3D printed. These Aluminum Arm Stiffeners are designed to be fitted as an upgrade on Makerbot Replicator 1, Replicator 2, Replicator 2X, Flashforge Creator, and Wanhao Duplicator 4, Duplicator 4X.
The arm stiffeners are relatively easy to install and it should not take a lot of time, then you need to spend some time tweaking things up before finally tightening them – try moving the build platform up and down over the Z axis to make sure that everything is fine. The results after installing the upgrade – less problems with failed or not that good looking 3D prints as with other upgrades that we have already installed, but still we do still have some issues from time to time. In general however after installing each new upgrade to our 3D printer we are getting less and less problems after that, so there is definitely an improvement, either small or big.
Effectively Using White Painters Tape
13 Oct2014
If printing mostly smaller details on your 3D printer you can easily take advantage of the cheaper white painters tape, however if you only place it in the middle you might have some trouble properly leveling up the build platform. So you just need to add some small pieces of tape where the points for leveling up the build platform are located and you should be able to adjust things much easier and faster. We are using the white painters tape as an easier means to remove the printer parts from the build plate as you can easily remove the tape with the printed 3D model on it and then reapply it on the build plate or replace it with another one. You can do the same thing with the Blue 3D painters tape, but it is more expensive and it is not as commonly available as the white painters tape.
We have already discussed what is the support material and what are rafts in 3D printing and why you need to use them and when, but it will be more clear for a lot of people to understand if we just show you. Here you can see a print of a low polygon 3D model of a tiger printed with support material under the body. The two most important and problematic zones if you do not use support material will be the head and the tail as they do not have anything under them as a part of the model and a 3D printer extruding thermoplastic material cannot simply print in thin air. That is why you need to print support material and not only for the head and tail, but for the body as well and when the 3D model is ready you can just remove the extra support material that you do not need.
The often observed problem with the use of support material however is that it may not always stick well to the print bed, so you may need to add Raft to fix this. Sometimes the support material could also be hard to remove from the 3D printed model, especially if your print bed is not properly leveled as normally you should be able to very easily remove the extra support material. One of the drawbacks that many of the 3D printing software solutions that come bundled with 3D printers is that they are designed to automatically generate support where they think it is required. So the user does not have control of where and how much support material to be used, but the good news is that there are alternative software packages that do provide extra functions such the ability for the user to add support material only where it is needed.