The Traveled Max2 - Colorado

[Neptune]

There's a couple of things you can do to get rid of the flare at the first layer. You can print the part on a raft or you can put a .25mm radius around the edges that contact the build plate.

g.

So Gene, the flare isn't caused by the Bed Heat and too much material? or is it just a combination of many factors? Reducing the first layer thickness really minimized it on my prints, but its still there.

[aTanguay]

Thanks to both of you guys for the pointers/ideas. I will keep plugging away. I'm inspired by the progress I made with ABS last night. I have never been more pleased to see a little bit of plastic! I left it out on a Post-it for my SO to see in the morning. She's such a good sport.

It's very kind of you guys to share your knowledge. I bet a lot of this seems like second nature, but it's news to me and any pointers in the right direction can be revelations. So thanks again.

[aTanguay]

As a side note, I want to write down something very interesting that I felt last night. For the first time I realized that in some ways I was untethered from the HOW of designing something and was freed to concentrate on the most elegant solution, design-wise, to what I wanted to do.
Generally the workflow for making things involves a lot of thinking as to how you would bring it in to being. Would it be made of wood? What kind of wood? What tools would you use to fashion it? Do you have that tool? These kinds of thoughts can dominate an idea process. At the very least, they an take up a good amount of brain power.

But last night, it really hit me that, for the first time, the limit on a lot of projects is only how elegant of a solution I can come up with. I sat and thought about ways my project could hold itself together, and how I could use ready made objects to enhance it.

In short, the power of 3D printing really hit me, and it's pretty exciting. I'm sure lots of people have this moment, but it's a new one to me. Frankly, I've been a bit of a 3D printing skeptic for some time. And while it has its limits, and I'm very lucky in that I can design my own parts very easily, it's still very cool and quite an 'aha!' moment.

(This is something I felt the need to capture)

[geneb]

Neptune: The first layer is typically a "fat" layer to improve bed adhesion. That is the primary reason why you'll end up with that little "foot" around the perimeters of your print. As has been pointed out, there's a couple of ways to mitigate it. Just remember that perfection is the bitter enemy of good enough.

aTanguay: You know what my biggest problem has been? Remembering that I HAVE 3D printers that can solve problems that I've spent years approaching from different directions. You get so wrapped up in thinking about how to solve a problem given a specific tool set that when you get a tool that essentially obsoletes half your work flow, it takes some serious effort to leverage it.

g.

[Neptune]

Neptune: The first layer is typically a "fat" layer to improve bed adhesion. That is the primary reason why you'll end up with that little "foot" around the perimeters of your print. As has been pointed out, there's a couple of ways to mitigate it. Just remember that perfection is the bitter enemy of good enough.
g.

Ya I hear you Gene, I'm not that much of a perfectionist that I obsess about the small stuff, its only if it affects function does it stick in my craw! Along the same note and directly related to Tanguays revelation, I've found that once I printed the first object I designed that I was immediately enthralled with the notion that "If I don't like it, I can just change it" and I can see getting caught up in the idea "Well I'll just make this one little change"...and the recursion begins