3D Printing Errors ( Just Hack It )

3D printers are awesome and it made my life easier, instead of buying Things why not make Them. That way I can customize it to my needs, and possible personalize gifts for friends and fam. Since I was a teen I started learning about How to create 3D models using various 3D Softwares. I was so excited at the beginning but the boredom took over! I needed a good motive. now that 3D printers became everyone and their mother’s garage kickstarter startup project, the excitement hit me again, now I make and print what I want at home From my experience of 3D design, and printing, I wanted to share a simple instructions on how to ensure that 3D print comes out flawlessly.

follow these steps to get the most out of your 3D Printer,

Step 1: Check Your Printer Bed, Everyone Wants a Comfy Bed.

The very first thing that's easy to deal with is the printer bed. There are many methods to make you printer bed the best for 3d printing; some print bed tapes make your model slip and cause a common 3D error to happen and the layers will shift, meaning you will have an uneven surface. Furthermore, the expenses of these tapes are somehow ridiculous. I found a cheap and reliable alternative. Self-adhesive grass mat rolls that the architectures use for their model design. The cost of this material is around $20 bucks, the surface of this adhesive material is a bit rough and smooth at the same time, that will hold your model in place and won’t ruin you design surface at the contact area with the bed.

With all PLA and ABS filament, the plastic melts and solidifies quickly. One thing to take note of is that they both melt and solidify on different temperatures. So make sure the printer bed temperature for PLA is 60c and for ABS 110c.

Step 2: Your Printer’s Extruder Needs Care

Some technicalities you might face are a bit hard to fix and some are just as easy as to drink milk from the bottle, Make sure to clean the extruder every once and awhile. I usually clean it every 3 prints. To make sure everything flows nicely.
Make sure that the filament is not knotted or stuck. else it won’t extrude and might lead to a burn in the extruder that will cost you another extruder. Some can get pricey. One hack to this is to loosen the filament for the initial print phase. This will also make sure that your model has a strong base and won’t slip easily.

Sometimes you need to say goodbye to the nozzle of the extruder. of course, this operation is usual when your nozzle is no longer useful in the printing process, but the time needed to change depends on how much you take care of your printer.

Step 3: Tried Everything, But Nothing Worked ?

Some models were just a pain in the butt, no matter what I try they just won’t Print correctly ! so I thought that the problem is not in the printer, The model might be the problem.
So I checked the model Using Meshlab program. And the surprise was that the model was full of non-manifolds, boundary edges and flipped faces. So here my 3D modeling skills came in handy, I fixed the problems and I attempted to print. And yet an issue appeared, the cape just wouldn't print. It required a lot of manual work to fix the thickness of the cape. I snooped around and found another mesh repair solution that re- mesh's the model for 3D printing ”www.makepritnable.com”. The beauty of it, is very simple UI and automatically fixes wall thickness issues. So I thought to share it with you 3D printing geeks. Have a try you will be surprised of the result.

As for this post these the most common problems with an easy fix I faced. Don’t Hesitate to ask me questions for any errors you faced. And I will answer with pleasure

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Have a pleasant 3D Printing Experience