Way too long print times for something I thought was simple

[nrbelk]

I'm trying to print a cube-ish thing that I designed. When I load it into matter control it has a print time of about 40 hours. The size of the shape is about between a baseball and a softball size.

I did substract material from the inside to make a hollow shell but I can't figure out what I need to do to make matter control see it as a single walled shell instead of something that is has to infill.

(In a horrible attempt at ascii art: I keep getting |||---||| and I want |||||| (the --- are infill options)).

I think that is the main problem that is making it think it will take so long.

Attached is an image of that I'm trying to print. Do I need to submit the STL as well? There is an opening on one of the triagles which will be used to access the cavity. I'll be printing another part that will snap in (or glued in) once the stuff is added inside the cavity.

That last picture I had forgotten to add the decorations to that one side you see blank....

[teoman]

tpo - bottom layers and perimitres is what you should be adjustin, and then infill.

if you modeled it empty then you may need support aswell.

did you have a look at the gcode viewer (layer view) to see it is actually doing what you want?

[nrbelk]

tpo - bottom layers and perimitres is what you should be adjustin, and then infill.

I'm still learning and pretty new at this, I don't know what tpo means. How do I know what value I should set the settings too? Do I just take the thickens from my design, and divide that by 2?

if you modeled it empty then you may need support aswell.

Ya, I was planning on using support but I didn't think it would affect the time that much. Only a small section around the base and the middle will need it.

did you have a look at the gcode viewer (layer view) to see it is actually doing what you want?

I looked through the layers and that is where I found out that it was trying to leave a gap (or infill) the parts where I didn't want it to. Is there a way to generate the layers easier? What I'm having to do is add the part, say print, wait for it to load all the layers and write the layers, cancel the print, and then disconnect the printer (and reconnect it again so the fans keep going on it to cool the hotend). All those steps just so I can walk through the layers.

[geneb]

It was a typo - he meant "top". Typically 3 layers is good enough as well as 3 "perimeters" or loops.

What infill percentage do you have configured?

g.

[thedoble]

Post the STL and some of us can slice it and see if we are getting similar print times.

[teoman]

Oh dear!

In matter control you select your model and the layer view and hit generate. The you use the bars on the right and bottom to view the different layers in 2d or 3d as you like.

The printer does not even need to be connected.

Now you can fiddle with the settings all you want and observe the changes.


Sorry for the typo.

[DavidF]

Get over it and print the dang thing