Problem 3D printing planes with Upstudio or Upstudio3

JothamB · February 2, 2021, 6:38am

Hey guys,

I’ve seen the support article for printing 3DLabprint airplanes - wonderful. This is the kind of content I really like.

I’m now trying to print a plane from eclipson-airplanes.com however I’m struggling to get this to work:

No matter what I do, the inner perimeter leaves a large gap. The instructions from the creator of the files are to turn off infill, turn off top/bottom layers, so it only prints outer shell.

This works great in Cura, Slic3r, simplify3D etc…

No gap, good strong part.

I’ve tried to change every setting that might affect it that I can think of, I have run out of ideas. Here’s what I have at the moment:

Here is a link to a free part from them to test with: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2752892/files

Same thing massive gaps:

I have tested with Upstudio 3 and every setting and I’m getting the same results.

Any suggestions will be massively appreciated.

Jason-TT · February 3, 2021, 3:05am

I checked the free files, the surface looks OK.
So you can just print directly with VASE/Surface mode and with the option “thin wall” turn on, no need to flip the surfaces. You may increase the extrusion scale to make the lines overlap more.

JothamB · February 3, 2021, 7:25am

Thanks Jason, this is EXACTLY what I’ve been looking for!! A lot of the things I 3D print for hobby use are planes (thin wall) or jetboats (thin wall but more perimeters). They need to be strong.

I still need to test it, but if this does what it looks like it does I’m going to be super happy.

JothamB · February 3, 2021, 10:15am

Apart from the Error: Nozzle ID Not Match error, that I finally worked past, this is going very very well.

… and it slices so quickly. Very nicely done. Let’s see tomorrow how good the print is! First few mm of test piece were very strong.

JothamB · February 3, 2021, 4:12pm

It appears to have created random blobs next to the part. Other than that, printing well.

JothamB · February 3, 2021, 4:20pm

Settings:
I have -0.2mm fuse gap set. I don’t think it makes sense to have a negative number for fuse gap. I will test with 1.0mm like in the example https://support.tiertime.com/hc/en-us/articles/900002739383-Special-Options

What does the Tolerance setting do? It doesn’t describe it in the document linked above.

Jason-TT · February 4, 2021, 3:11am

tolerance will expand of shrink the perimeters of the object, there slightly adjust the total size of the print.

JothamB · February 4, 2021, 4:11am

Thanks.

Do you have any ideas about the blobbing?

Jason-TT · February 4, 2021, 8:20am

Could be printing too hot？

JothamB · February 4, 2021, 8:52am

I’m printing PLA that I normally do at 215c, with the default PLA profile which has 210c set. To me it looks like a software issue. I’ve never had this problem before when printing PLA except with upstudio 3, just now.

JothamB · February 5, 2021, 11:49pm

Hi Jason,

I think I’ve worked out what is causing the blobbing.

The printer stops and says: thread blocked, then attempts to recover from the error. While stopped, it oozes and forms the large blob.

Have a look at a video I took, sorry it is a bit long and boring: https://photos.app.goo.gl/PAFbmaE3X9af1JsR9

JothamB · February 6, 2021, 9:32am

Update:
It appears the problem I have/had is two part:

The thread blocked issue.
The blobbing was actually the nozzle being slightly loose, it would leak very slowly and build up a blob around the nozzle, then eventually drop it in the print, I had to watch it closely to see it happen.

Alright well I have about 15 prototype parts that need printing now. RC planes can wait for spare time. I’m hoping that the prints sent by the regular UPStudio don’t get the thread blocked error.

JothamB · February 8, 2021, 8:55am

I’ve just finished 6x prints, 5 hours long each from regular upstudio (non 3 version) without a single issue.

I’m thinking the thread blocked issue must be an upstudio3 problem? I can’t 100% confirm it but it does look that way.

UPDATE: 10 feb. Finished 70hrs of printing time since trying the RC plane files… 100% success rate, no thread block’s or anything unusual.

JothamB · February 12, 2021, 6:25pm

Hi Jason,

This week I’ve done about 90 hours of printing on the machine without any problems it worked beautifully. (with regular type of parts, not thin wall, and this was with normal UPStudio)

Today I tried to do the plane parts again with upstudio3: