30mm/s

[atoff]

So, seems like delta printers are so very slow compared to their Cartesian counterparts, am I wrong? Whenever someone tells me a print took them 5 minutes, the same print would take me 15... same layer height, infill, etc. Seems that they're printing at around 100-150mm/s or so, whereas mine's set to 30mm/s, which is what's been recommended for the Rostock. Do the speed ratings not translate the same between Cartesian and Delta printers, since they're mechanical different? Will I always be printing at 1/3 the speed?

[mhackney]

You are wrong! Deltas are usually much faster than a cartesian printer. If you want to print faster, print faster. I print at 100mm/s all the time and can go higher. But with any printer, greater speed results in lower quality usually.

Deltas are faster for several reasons:

they can travel in all 3 dimensions at the same rate. Most cartesan printers have a much slower Z axis

the part stays stationary on a delta, most cartesans have a table the moves in one dimension. This movement can be problematic with larger parts and fast speeds

the effector on a delta is much lighter with a bowden extruder. most cartesians have much more mass on the moveable platform the hot end is mounted on.

The "recommendation" of 30mm/s is simply to help people get started and build experience. If you are experienced, ramp it up.

cheers,
Michael

[Captain Starfish]

Good safe defaults, up to you to see where you can push it. I've been incrementally creeping things up and have reached this point but I haven't hit any big problems yet.

I'd also remark that I get BETTER results going a little faster than the 30mm/s - the layers seem to be a lot less blobby.

Maybe save your settings now and give something like this a go:

[atoff]

You are wrong! Deltas are usually much faster than a cartesian printer. If you want to print faster, print faster. I print at 100mm/s all the time and can go higher. But with any printer, greater speed results in lower quality usually.

Deltas are faster for several reasons:

they can travel in all 3 dimensions at the same rate. Most cartesan printers have a much slower Z axis

the part stays stationary on a delta, most cartesans have a table the moves in one dimension. This movement can be problematic with larger parts and fast speeds

the effector on a delta is much lighter with a bowden extruder. most cartesians have much more mass on the moveable platform the hot end is mounted on.

The "recommendation" of 30mm/s is simply to help people get started and build experience. If you are experienced, ramp it up.

cheers,
Michael

And I'm very happy to wrong, thanks! That's exactly what I thought when I decided to go with a Delta printer, one of that advantages I'd read about was speed.
I was trying to print a case for my Raspberry Pi, which was going to take 7 hours. I'll ramp it up and see how it ends up.

Good safe defaults, up to you to see where you can push it. I've been incrementally creeping things up and have reached this point but I haven't hit any big problems yet.

I'd also remark that I get BETTER results going a little faster than the 30mm/s - the layers seem to be a lot less blobby.

Maybe save your settings now and give something like this a go:

slicersettings.jpg

Awesome, thanks for the settings. I'll definitely give them a try with Slicer. I use Cura, but I'm not sure which settings relate:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/FH5WLg0.jpg[/img]

Cura complained about all the values I tried entering!

[img]http://i.imgur.com/LWkhWum.jpg[/img]

[mhackney]

An easy way to explore print speeds is to use the Speedy Multiply slider in Repetier Host. Most host applications have something similar. They usually allow up to double the slicer configuration so you could ramp up to 60mm/s in Repetier without replacing.

[atoff]

Thanks, I'll have to play with it and see what I can achieve... I'll have to tighten my belts!

[Polygonhell]

It should be noted that really big values for things like travel speed are capped in the firmware, setting the speed to 600 is probably identical to 300 and possibly 200, depending what the cap is in the firmware.
Acceleration settings in the firmware also becomes dominant in print times as speeds creep up.

[atoff]

Well, I just tried the settings from Captain Starfish

Something odd happened, because it stopped printing 5 minutes into a 3 hour print (at those speeds), and went to 100% complete. It was a little messy too, but damn I loved watching it move!! I restarted the print with my standard Cura settings, though with print speed at 35mm/s and ramped it up to 150% through Repetier-Host. It seems to be doing well. A little globby at first, but they may be the new filament I'm trying.

Edit: I just realized I forgot to adjust the filament size after swapping filaments! I don't see a way to change it mid-print, or through the LCD. It's not so off, 1.73mm avg vs the 1.78mm I had set... and this filament did vary to 1.78-1.80mm.

[dgriff]

As you get more comfortable with gcode editing, you may also find that you want to adjust the speed dynamically in your gcode files.

I've been printing lightsabers for the last couple of weeks (fairly complex models, lots of printing!), and have started to include automatic speed adjustments in the code depending on the layer it's working on.

For example, for fine, intricate details, I'd slow the printer down to 40% for those layers with:

M220 S40

then when the model went back to simpler geometry, I'd ramp it back up to 100%

M220 S100

It's not terribly difficult to add directly in the code, and gives you excellent control over fine detail while still keeping your print speed as high as possible.

[JohnStack]

I've heard the same claims by Cartesian enthusiasts. All the above feedback is true. You can print fast on a Cartesian if you don't care about the quality - alternatively, you're printing a part that only has perimeter walls with no fill. I've gotten up to 100mm/s on my Cartesian but felt I could not use the results.

[Polygonhell]

It's not quite as simple as delta vs Cartesian.
Ultimakers fly and can produce great prints, a lot depends on the design of both.
Deltas have an unquestioned advantage in terms of Z moves though.

I don't thing one has an absolute advantage over the other, it's all swings and roundabouts to use an English expression.

The fact deltas have had the impact they have in huge short time they've really been available is quite astonishing, while most scara designs fail to take off.

[atoff]

As you get more comfortable with gcode editing, you may also find that you want to adjust the speed dynamically in your gcode files.

I've been printing lightsabers for the last couple of weeks (fairly complex models, lots of printing!), and have started to include automatic speed adjustments in the code depending on the layer it's working on.

For example, for fine, intricate details, I'd slow the printer down to 40% for those layers with:

M220 S40

then when the model went back to simpler geometry, I'd ramp it back up to 100%

M220 S100

It's not terribly difficult to add directly in the code, and gives you excellent control over fine detail while still keeping your print speed as high as possible.

Ah, perfect, thanks! I was wondering if it would be possible to do that, there have been plenty of times I've wanted to have it slow down at certain parts, then speed back up. I was doing that manually just now. Had some detail, so left it at 100%, then bumped it to 150%, then finally 200% when the rest didn't matter as much.

It's not quite as simple as delta vs Cartesian.
Ultimakers fly and can produce great prints, a lot depends on the design of both.
Deltas have an unquestioned advantage in terms of Z moves though.

I don't thing one has an absolute advantage over the other, it's all swings and roundabouts to use an English expression.

The fact deltas have had the impact they have in huge short time they've really been available is quite astonishing, while most scara designs fail to take off.

Yeah, I've seen the Ultimaker prints, they looks great. My prints have come out really nice, but at the cost of time. at 30mm/s they look fantastic, but I'm still learning, so I have many things to tweak and test.

My Pi case just finished at 200% speed. It looks okay, not great, not horrible, but I believe the filament is a bit to blame.

[Captain Starfish]

Those settings work ok for me, on my printer.

They are not my "final" settings by any stretch. Just another step along my journey of tuning and tweaking. And some firmware mods on limits will undoubtedly come into play at some point, too.

Posted 'em up mostly so you could easily see that you could push it much, much faster than the defaults with no worries at all.