Can we get a sticky posted in here!

[bubbasnow]

I was thinking for quick reference we could make a sticky on this machine specific page with initial RostockMax settings like:

1.75mm ABS
.35 nozzle
235c extruder temp
70c onyx w/glass temp with hairspray

Im thinking a quick place to visit for t-glase, nylon, pla, and abs initial settings would be useful

[Flateric]

Your suggestion is excellent, but...sorry there is a but.

The problem here is that every hotend and thermistor placement and assembly is slightly varied, Varied enough to make it problematic to make such specific suggestions. What works perfectly on my setup, my plug or completely bugger up someone else's setup, especially if the other person is new to the whole 3D printing thing and may not be able to identify the immediate signs of problems as they are occuring.

And there is yet another but unfortunately.

Every printer filament is different. And this time different in not so subtle ways. ABS from Ultimachine has great even reliable temperature settings nearly every time....in the same color and type (abs, pla). Switch to a different color of (ABS, PLA) and the temp can be as different as up to 30c! Now complicate this further with the same type of filament from a different source and even the same color can be drastically different in it's temp requirments. Now add yet another problem of cheap chinese filaments into this as well and the problems keep compounding.

An example....

I really, REALLY REALLY like all the filament I get from ultimachine. Always very consistent in diameter from the begining to the end of the roll. So consistent that I in fact feel confident enough to always buy 5 LB spools of what ever color I happen to be needing if it's from them. I bought some really nice ABS (all of their colors actually) and then recent bought some really nice ABS from newzeland.

Both ABS product are very consistent and very very good for printing with. But at first I hated the ABS from newzeland so much I was tearing my hair out. Why? After much frustration I found I have to print the newzeland stuff at a min of 265c or higher. 265c!!!! If I tried that with ABS from any other source I use, it would bugger up many things. And if I was a new user and happened to try those setting with a stock hotend, the printers hotend would be ruined before I could blink an eye almost. And both the user and the company that he was yelling at would be very unhappy since he was using "posted temps for ABS"

Start low, take it easy and unfortunately you gotta go through the learning curve of seeing what the plastic does and what you should do to adjust and optimaize it based on that specific spool you are currently feeding.

I do not know anyone anywhere that feels that they are "pro" enough to load up a brand new spool of ABS from a new source, hit print and walk away thinking that their old setting from other ABS source will serve fine.

This is foolish.

[Flateric]

Which is not to say I think you are foolish to be clear, it's a great suggestion and one I believe I made when I was starting out, but now realize is not really a reasonable thing to be executed successfully.

[626Pilot]

Sometimes people complain that there is no "known good" setting to use with the Rostock MAX. I think if you specified that they should start with a particular filament (e.g. SeeMeCNC blue) it would take some of the uncertainty out of the equation. Learning the Rostock when you've never done anything with 3D printing before involves learning how multiple independent variables play against each other, which can be really, really hard at first. As an engineer I don't want to solve for multiple variables at once, I want to solve for as few as possible (ideally just one.) So, anything that reduces that complexity is helpful, even with variations from one hot end to the next.

In fact, the heating portion can be made easier with a test. Heat up the nozzle to the low end of where you think it should be and manually feed some filament through it, paying attention to how much resistance it gives. Feed it for at least ten seconds in order to give the nozzle a chance to slow down or jam if it's going to. Bump up the temperature and see if it flows better or worse, and keep going until you've bracketed the ideal heat range. That solves for the heat part of the equation without allowing any other variables to influence the results. I've found that my E3D requires significantly hotter temperatures than any other one I've used, probably due to its low thermal mass and short melt zone.

After the heat is dialed in, you then have to worry about getting the first layer to stick. If you tell everyone to use the same exact filament to get started, there will still be some variance from one spool to another, but that will be a lot less than the variance between (let's say) SeeMeCNC blue and whatever random filament with Chinese glyphs printed on the label. The adhesion properties, optimal heated bed temperature, propensity to blob, string, curl, etc. will be the same. Specifying a low speed to start with is a good idea.

I'd also consider learning on ABS rather than PLA because it will be easier to get the heat range dialed in and it's less sensitive to the temperature being too high. It usually flows with lower viscosity. Getting new users proficient with one thing at a time is likely to lead to a lot less high blood pressure than requiring them to learn how multiple variables interact all at once (which will lead to mistakes and frustration and has probably lead to more than a few Rostock kits never being finished all the way.)

[Flateric]

Good points.

[cope413]

Yep, definitely good points.

IME, PLA was much easier to "figure out" than ABS was - mainly because of first layer adhesion and warping. But now that I have a handle on all the variables, I much prefer to print with ABS... Which ties in to the main point everyone is getting at - there isn't really a "known good" configuration that works for everyone.

To me, it's part of what makes 3D printing both incredibly fascinating and maddening. It's definitely more art than engineering at this stage in the game.

[Jimustanguitar]

It's not even that there isn't a setting that works for everyone, it's that there isn't a setting that works for every part. No matter how well you have things dialed in, each part can require slightly different settings, and that's the biggest variable that you learn as you print.

[626Pilot]

In that case I'd throw some standard calibration pieces into the recipe.

Mastery is a matter of accumulating about 100,000 pieces of information about a given subject, and you get closer to mastery as you go along. A stock setup with specified settings, filament, and models to be printed (e.g. calibration cube) would flatten out the learning curve, which can be really steep at the beginning. What you learn during this phase may not apply 100% to other filaments and models, but maybe it will apply 80%, and that last 20% will be much easier to figure out since you have a mental picture of how it's supposed to work. The mistakes you make getting the reference settings to work will teach you, and they will teach you correctly. Without this, you have to figure it out yourself, and you may wind up teaching yourself something incorrectly because of an incorrect assumption.

One of the biggest problems I see in DIY 3D printer land is the enormous duplication of effort. Whatever SeeMeCNC doesn't give you in terms of parts and knowledge, you have to develop yourself. So, rather than one person at SeeMe spending (let's say) 10 hours on something, you have 100 3D printing novices spending 30 hours to achieve the same result. Obviously, SeeMeCNC doesn't have 100 employees sitting around who can figure out all this stuff ahead of time, so that isn't meant to fault them. I think the happy medium is for them to do their best, and to actively look at what users have put together (on the forums and on Thingiverse) and compile all that stuff in a place new users are made aware of the second they unbox their kits. If nothing else, it would save them a lot of time answering email support requests.

It would also be nice if there was a wiki. I learned from working on a complicated software project that forum stickies are OK for concentrating information, but wikis are far better. In a forum thread you will have some interesting piece of information 8 pages in that no one will see unless they read the entire thread, not knowing it's there for them to find in the first place. Wikis are hierarchical from the beginning.

[theverant]

+1 626Pilot's response to this ubiquitous problem.

[justprintit]

uuuumm! some reference settings would still be great..., it is actually exactly what I searched that brought me here - with detailed comments like above, I'd find it very useful to have a basic idea, even while my hot end warms up its own unique way, just a general reference even proportionally, will help.

I have no idea what speeds Rostcock MAX can go, it would be very nice to see settings that worked for someone else!

[theverant]

Well okay, I'll take the bait - I'm printing (as in right now):

Hardware:
Stock motors
E3D Hotend
CF Arms from Tricklaser
Airtripper Extruder

Filament:
Black PLA (from VoxelFactory)

Slicer:
Slic3r

General settings:
195c
50mm/s infill + Perimeters

This is by no means a max speed - I really am just getting prints I'm happy with from the RoMax and I'm still experimenting and staying conservative.